Abuse, Emotional: This includes belittling, humiliating, or undermining an individual’s sense of self-worth/self-esteem (e.g., constant criticism, verbal insults and name-calling, etc.). [UNECE]
Abuse, Physical: Physical acts of abusive behaviour and/or threats of abuse such as: pushing, grabbing, shoving, hair-pulling, hitting, slapping, beating up, kicking, burning, choking, using a weapon, or threats of the above. [UNECE]
Abuse, Psychological: Acts of violence in the categories of emotional and psychological abuse sometimes overlap, and there is no clear-cut distinction between the two. Psychological abuse is generally perceived as any act that causes fear such as: threats, intimidation, controlling behaviours, and forced isolation, to name a few. [UNECE]
Abuse, Sexual: Any coerced sexual contact or behaviour, or an attempt to coerce such, without the victim’s consent. This category includes, but is not limited to: attempted or committed rape, any forced and non-consensual sexual act, as well as sexual behaviour that the victim finds humiliating and degrading. [UNECE]
Access: Access to resources implies that women are able to use and benefit from specific resources (including material, financial, human, social and political ones). [UNEP]
Access and Control: Productive, reproductive and community roles require the use of resources. In general, women and men have different levels of both access (the opportunity to make use of something) to the resources needed for their work, and control (the ability to define its use and impose that definition on others) over those resources. [World Bank]
Adultery: refers to the act of extramarital sexual relations involving at least one married person and another person. The word adultery originates from the Latin verb for "to alter, corrupt": adulterare. Historically, adultery has been considered to be a serious offense by many cultures. In some countries, adultery is a crime. However, even in jurisdictions where adultery is not itself a criminal offense, it may still have legal consequences, particularly in divorce cases. [Wikigender]
Affirmative Action: Affirmative action includes measures targeted at a particular group and intended to eliminate and prevent discrimination, or to prevent existing disadvantages. [DANIDA]
Affirmative/Positive Action: Measures aimed at a specific group that are designed to eliminate discrimination and prevent it, or to help resolve disadvantages which derive from traditional positions, behaviour and structures (also wrongly referred to as "positive discrimination"). [CZSO]
Age-Sex Structure (Age-Sex Pyramid): The relative proportions of different age sex categories in a population. [RSU]
Ambivalent Sexism: refers to a form of sexism characterized by attitudes about women that reflect both negative, resentful beliefs and feelings and affectionate, chivalrous, but potentially patronizing beliefs and feelings. [Psychology Lexicon]
Androcracy or Andrarchy: is a form of government in which the government rulers are men. This term derives from the Greek root words andros, or "man", and kratos, or "ruled". [Answers.com]
Androgyny: A term that combines the Greek words for man and woman is a state of ambiguous gender in which identifying sexual characteristics are uncertain or mixed. It differs from hermaphroditism, or intersexuality, a condition in which dual sexual characteristics are unambiguously present. To say that someone is androgynous is to say that he or she combines stereotypically male and female attributes. [MIGS]
Androgyny: A gender role that combines male and female characteristics. [Triton]
Androgyny: The blending of traditional feminine and masculine traits. [RSU]
Armed Conflict: A contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battlerelated deaths. [UNDP/PRIO]
Arranged Marriage: Marriage based on the family ties rather than the couple's personal preferences. [RSU]
Battered Wife Syndrome: A post traumatic stress disorder cause by repeated physical abuse. It has been used as a legal defense by women accused of murdering their abusers. [Triton]
Battered Women's Syndrome (BWS): refers to a series of common characteristics that appear in women who are abused physically and psychologically over an extended period of time by the dominant male figure in their lives; a pattern of psychological symptoms that develops after somebody has lived in a battering relationship; and a pattern of responses and perceptions presumed to be characteristic of women who have been subjected to continuous physical abuse by their mates. [Psychology Lexicon]
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action: The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace, Beijing, 15 September 1995. The document was agreed upon world governments at the Conference and is a comprehensive outline of strategic steps to be taken in order to concretise and enhance the goals of CEDAW. Although it is not, of its nature, a legally binding document, consisting of policy commitments rather than legal obligations, it is, nonetheless, a significant statement of principle, and has great symbolic value. [MIGS]
Biodiversity: The variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems. [UNEP]
Birth Cohort: The number of people born in a specific year. [Triton]
Birth Rates: The average number of children born to women. [Triton]
Bisexual: A person for whom their sexual attraction is more or less equally directed to a person of either sex. [MIGS]
Blended Family: A family consisting of two previously married people plus their children. [RSU]
Breastfeeding: refers to the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. Most mothers can breastfeed for six months or more, without the supplement of infant formula milk or solid food. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends exclusive breastfeeding for newborns at least until 6 months of age. Breastfeeding is the ideal way of providing young infants with the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development. Research suggests that breastfeeding promotes health, helps to prevent disease and reduces health care and feeding costs. [Wikigender]
Capabilities Approach: Developed by economist and development expert Amartya Sen, the capabilities approach views the end goal of development as the expansion of the freedom of people to choose the kind of life they wish to live. Capabilities are “substantive human freedoms” – rather than focusing on income and wealth, they ask what choices people have, and what individuals are actually able to do and be. According the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which has outlined the approach in its Human Development Reports, there are three essential capabilities: for people to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable, and to have a decent standard of living. Martha Nussbaum has written about the relevancy of the capabilities approach to women, contending that “women’s issues have been at the heart of the approach from the start, both because of their urgency and because the dire situation of women around the world helps us to see more clearly the inadequacy of various other approaches to development.” Naila Kabeer has also recently included the approach in her examination of gender mainstreaming in poverty eradication and the Millennium Development Goals. Although Kabeer believes that improvements can be made, she notes that the approach has in many respects been more successful in revealing the gender dimensions of poverty than other commonly used approaches. [MIGS]
Care (Informal): Unpaid care for dependent children, the elderly, ill or disabled persons carried out by family members or others. The responsibility of informal care work is taken up by women with major impact on their health and well being. Informal care is largely invisible and the economic and social contributions of women carers unacknowledged. Over 75% of informal carers worldwide are women. [MIGS]
Care Work: may be very broadly defined as the work of looking after the physical, psychological, emotional and developmental needs of one or more other people. Care recipients are generally identified as infants, school-age children, people who are ill, persons with a disability, and elderly people. Care providers typically include public and private health services, state-regulated or public-sector social workers, public or private care-provider agencies, enterprises of employment, voluntary and community organizations, faith-based organizations or networks, and relatives and friends. Different settings and modalities of care work apply to each of these categories. [ILO]
Care Work: Care work encompasses care provided to dependent children, the elderly, the sick and the disabled in care institutions or in the home of the person requiring care. Care policies and the provision of care services are intrinsically related to the achievement of equality between women and men. The lack of affordable, accessible and high quality care services and the fact that care work is not equally shared between women and men have a direct negative impact on women’s ability to participate in all aspects of social, economic, cultural and political life. [MIGS]
Caste System: A closed form of stratification in which an individual's status is determined by birth and cannot be changed. [RSU]
Casual Work: is work without a fixed duration performed by workers who are called on to work only as and when they are needed by the employer. They may work full- or part-time for periods of varying duration. Casual work is closely dependent on the level of, and fluctuation in, the workload, and casual workers may work for only a few days or for as long as several weeks in a row. Casual workers differ from other non-permanent workers in that they may often possess fewer rights and less protection. The absence of a continuing stable relationship with any employer can lead to casual workers not being considered employees at all, even where there is a contract. Casual workers’ legal and contractual entitlements are usually limited or absent. [ILO]
CEDAW: (The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women)- An international convention adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, is often described as an international bill of rights for women. Consisting of a preamble and 30 articles, it defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination. By accepting the Convention, States commit themselves to undertake a series of measures to end discrimination against women in all forms, including:
-to incorporate the principle of equality of men and women in their legal system, abolish all discriminatory laws and adopt appropriate ones prohibiting discrimination against women;
-to establish tribunals and other public institutions to ensure the effective protection of women against discrimination; and
-to ensure elimination of all acts of discrimination against women by persons, organizations or enterprises
Countries that have ratified or acceded to the Convention are legally bound to put its provisions into practice. They are also committed to submit national reports, at least every four years, on measures they have taken to comply with their treaty obligations. Optional Protocol to CEDAW was adopted in 1999 by the General Assembly. States which ratify the Optional Protocol recognize the competence of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to consider petitions from individual women or groups of women who have exhausted all national remedies. The Optional Protocol also entitles the Committee to conduct inquiries into grave or systematic violations of the Convention. [MIGS]
Census: A count of the population, often including a detailed profile of that population. [RSU]
Child Exploitation and Slavery: According to the Convention Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor, the worst forms of child labor include, “…all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict. [HRUSA]
Child Marriage: usually refers to two separate social phenomena which are practiced in some societies. The first and more widespread practice is that of marrying a young child (generally defined as below the age of fifteen) to an adult. In practice this is almost always a young girl being married to a man. The second practice is a form of arranged marriage in which the parents of two children from different families arrange a future marriage. In this practice, the individuals who become married often do not meet one another until the wedding ceremony, which occurs when they are both of a marriageable age. Which age this is differs by local customs. In most practicing cultures, this age is at or after the onset of puberty. [Wikigender]
Child Soldier: The Cape Town Principles define a child soldier as any person under 18 years who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force in any capacity. This encompasses but is not limited to cooks, porters, messengers and anyone accompanying such groups other than family members. The definition also includes girls recruited for sexual purposes and for forced marriage. It does not, therefore, only refer to a child who is carrying or has carried arms. Application of this broad definition is important: possession of a weapon is not a prerequisite for a child soldier to benefit from the demobilization and reintegration process. [UNICEF]
Civil Liberties: are the freedoms of a citizen to exercise customary rights without interference by the government. Common civil liberties include freedom of association, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, and additionally, the right to due process, to a fair trial, and to privacy. The formal concept of civil liberties dates back to the Magna Carta of 1215 which in turn was based on pre-existing documents. [Wikigender]
Civil Rights: Rights that ensure that citizens are protected from harm by other citizens of the state and from the government itself. [Triton]
Civil Rights: Legal rights held by all citizens in a given state. [RSU]
Civil Society: A realm of political action lying between the household and the state but excluding for profit private sector organisations. Civil society organisations are commonly exemplified by non-governmental and community-based developmental organisations, but also include a wide range of other groups including sports clubs, interest groups, trade unions etc. [UNDP]
Civil Society: is seen as a social sphere separate from both the state and the market. The increasingly accepted understanding of the term civil society organizations (CSOs) is that of non-state, not-for-profit, voluntary organizations formed by people in that social sphere. This term is used to describe a wide range of organizations, networks, associations, groups and movements that are independent from government and that sometimes come together to advance their common interests through collective action. Traditionally, civil society includes all organizations that occupy the 'social space' between the family and the state, excluding political parties and firms. Some definitions of civil society also include certain businesses, such as the media, private schools, and for-profit associations, while others exclude them. [WHO]
Cohabitation: A household in which those living together are not married or related. [Triton]
Cohabitation: Living together in a sexual relationship of some permanence, without being legally married. [RSU]
Community Managing Role: This is one of “women’s triple roles” which refer to the reproductive, productive and community managing roles. Community managing role activities are undertaken primarily by women, as an extension of their reproductive role, to ensure the provision and maintenance of scarce resources of collective consumption such as water, health care and education. This is voluntary unpaid work undertaken in ‘free’ time. [MIGS]
Community Politics Role: Activities undertaken primarily by men at the community level, organizing at the formal political level, often within the framework of national politics. This work is usually undertaken by men and may be paid directly or result in increased power and status. [MIGS]
Comparable Worth: is a philosophy of "Pay Equity" which suggests that jobs of comparable values (skills and experience) should be paid the same. [Del Mar]
Composite Indicator: is formed when individual indicators are compiled into a single index, on the basis of an underlying model of the multi-dimensional concept that is being measured (e.g. competitiveness, e-trade or environmental quality). Composite measures are used when single indicators cannot adequately capture such multi-dimensional concepts. Ideally, a composite indicator should be based on a theoretical framework / definition, which allows individual indicators / variables to be selected, combined and weighted in a manner which reflects the dimensions or structure of the phenomena being measured. [Wikigender]
Contraception: refers to mechanisms that are intended to reduce the likelihood of a sperm cell fertilizing the egg. These include the condom, hormonal contraceptive pills, and intra-uterine devices. It is also called birth control and is also associated with abortion by anti-abortion campaigners. [Wikigender]
Control: Control over resources implies that women can obtain access to a resource as and can also make decisions about the use of that resource. For example, control over land means that women can access land (use it), can own land (can be the legal title-holders), and can make decisions about whether to sell or rent the land. [UNEP]
Convention: A legally binding agreement between nations designed to protect human rights (used interchangeably with treaty and covenant). Conventions are considered to have more legal force than declarations because governments are legally bound to enforce the agreements that they have ratified. When the UN General Assembly adopts a convention, it creates international standards for action and behavior. Once a convention is adopted by the UNGA, Member States can then ratify it, thereby promising to uphold it. Governments that violate the standards set forth in a convention can then be censured by the UN and by governments. [HRUSA]
Covenant: A legally binding agreement between nations (used synonymously with convention and treaty). The major international human rights covenants, both adopted in 1966 (and entered into force in 1976), are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). [HRUSA]
Crude Birth Rate: A statistical measure representing the number of births per thousand population within a given year. [RSU]
Crude Death Rate: A statistical measure representing the number of deaths per thousand population that occur annually in a given population. [RSU]
Crude Divorce Rate: Measures the number of divorces per 1,000 of the total population. This measure includes many individuals who are not eligible for divorce due to their age or non-married status. [Triton]
Culture of Poverty. A theory associated with victim-blame that holds that individuals and groups in poverty are responsible for their own plight and maintains that the central problem is that years of dependency and lower-class values lead to failure. [Triton]
Culture of Poverty: The view that the poor have a different value system that contributes to their poverty. [RSU]
Custodial Care: Occurs when the focus of health care is on the needs of the institution (convenience, efficiency) rather than on the needs of the patient. [RSU]
Customary Law: In many countries, a system of civil law runs parallel to indigenous and religious systems of customary law. Customary law often applies in matters concerned with family law, and thus as a great deal of impact on women’s everyday lives, as it deals with issues such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody. The duality of legal systems in some countries, where both civil and customary law exist side by side, hinders the implementation of international human rights instruments like CEDAW. This is because these instruments are civil law instruments, which cannot be codified into customary law. Furthermore, where customary law is practiced in a way which marginalises or discriminates against women as equal citizens, it is highly unlikely that human rights principles such as the right to equality and the provisions of other international instruments will be considered. [MIGS]
Death Rate: The number of deaths per 1000 people per year. [Triton]
Declaration: A document comprising standards that nations agree upon, but which are not legally binding like treaty provisions. UN conferences, such as the 1993 UN Conference on Human Rights in Vienna and the 1995 World Conference for Women in Beijing, usually produce two sets of declarations: one written by government representatives and one written by NGOs. [HRUSA]
Demographic Transition: A stabilization of population level in industrial society once a certain level of economic prosperity has been reached. Population is thought to stabilize because of economic incentives on families to limit the number of children. [RSU]
Demography: The scientific study of human population--including size, growth, movement, density, and composition. [RSU]
Demography: The study of human populations. [Triton]
Density (of Population): A measure of human crowding usually expressed as the number of people per square mile. [RSU]
Derived Rights: Particularly rights to social benefits or accommodation which derive from or are dependent on a person's relation to somebody else. These often involve parental or marital relations or shared households. [CZSO]
Desegregation of the Labour Market: Policies that aim to limit or eliminate vertical and horizontal segregation (division) of the labour market. [CZSO]
Development: According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), development is about “expanding the choices people have to lead lives that they value… it is about much more than economic growth...” In the United Nations system, the concept of human development is utilized. It is measured by the human development index (HDI) along with other indicators, such as the Gender-Related Development Index (GDI). The HDI includes three basic components: longevity, knowledge and standard of living. Longevity is measured by life expectancy, knowledge is measured by a combination of adult literacy and average years of schooling, and standard of living is measured by purchasing power, based on real GDP per capita adjusted for the local cost of living (known as “purchasing power parity”). [MIGS]
Development, Sustainable: Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organisation on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs. [UNDP]
Differential Access to and Control over Resources: Productive, reproductive and community roles require the use of resources. In general, women and men have different levels of both access to the resources needed for their work, and control over those resources:
Access: the opportunity to make use of something.
Control: the ability to define its use and impose that definition on others.
Economic/Political/Social/Time/Resources: Resources can be economic: such as land or equipment; political: such as representation, leadership and legal structures; social: such as child care, family planning, education; and also time — a critical but often scarce resource. [MIGS]
Directives (EU) on Equal Treatment: Directives that broaden the understanding of the principle of equal treatment for men and women compared with the original definition in the Rome Treaty, which only contained a requirement for the same remuneration for the same work. The principle of equal treatment for men and women was later expanded to include access to work, to training and education, promotion at work, statutory social security, employee and social security, to the self-employed, including in agriculture, to female employees who are pregnant and those who have recently given birth as well as to persons on parental leave. [CZSO]
Disability: Any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being. [CLRA]
Disaggregated Data (Sex): For a gender analysis, all data should be separated by sex in order to allow differential impacts on men and women to be measured. Sex disaggregated data is quantitative statistical information on differences and inequalities between women and men. Sex disaggregated data might reveal, for example, quantitative differences between women and men in morbidity and mortality; differences between girls and boys in school attendance, retention and achievement; differences between men and women in access to and repayment of credit; or differences between men and women in voter registration, participation in elections and election to office. [MIGS]
Discrimination: When an individual acts upon his/her prejudice by denying rights and benefits to others. [Triton]
Discrimination: The denial of equal access to social resources to people on the basis of their group membership. [RSU]
Discrimination (Direct and Indirect): Discrimination occurs in various forms in everyday life. As defined by the ILO (2003a). Any distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity and treatment in employment or occupation is discriminatory. Alongside racial discrimination, gender discrimination can be seen as one major form of discrimination. Discrimination can be distinguished into two forms: direct and indirect. The first form arises if, without being less qualified, certain groups of society are explicitly excluded or disadvantaged by the legal framework due to characteristics such as gender. Indirect discrimination occurs if intrinsically neutral rules or laws negatively affect certain groups, e.g. female workers. Discrimination of part-time workers against full time employees is still present in nearly every country. As a major proportion of part-time workers are female, this disadvantages women as well. [MIGS]
Discrimination (Gender): The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), approved by the United Nations in 1979, states that “Discrimination against women shall mean distinction, exclusion, or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field’’. It refers to any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of socially constructed gender roles and norms, which prevents a person from enjoying full human rights. [MIGS]
Discrimination (Institutional): Accepted social arrangements that place minority groups at a disadvantage. [RSU]
Discrimination (Systemic): Systemic discrimination is caused by policies and practices that are built into the ways that institutions operate, and that have the effect of excluding women and minorities. For example, in societies where the belief is strong that whatever happens within the household is the concern of household member only, the police force and judiciary, organisations within the institution of the state are likely routinely to avoid addressing questions of domestic violence, leading to systemic discrimination against all the women who experience violence within the home. [MIGS]
Displaced Women: Displaced persons are those who have fled or been driven from their communities to other localities within their country of nationality According to the UNHCR, more than 75% of displaced persons are women and their children, they are subjected to physical and sexual violence as much during their flight as when they arrive in the country of asylum, be it from members of the armed forces, immigration agents, bandits, pirates, local populations, individuals belonging to rival ethnic groups or other refugees. [MIGS]
Division of Labour: The specialization of work tasks or occupations and their interrelationship. All societies have some division of labor based on age and sex. But with the development of industrialism the division of labor becomes far more complex which affects many parts of the sociocultural system. The division of labor is perhaps the most underrated concept in sociology. [RSU]
Divorce: or dissolution of marriage is an act that represents the end of a marital union. [Wikigender]
Domestic Labour: Unpaid labor carried out around the home. [RSU]
Domestic Partnership: The legal recognition of an unwed couple whose purpose is to grant the same rights to unwed couples that is enjoyed by those legally married. [Triton]
Domestic Violence: Domestic violence receives the bulk of attention when it comes to research on gender based violence. It is often equated to intimate partner violence, or abusive behaviour within a relationship. It embraces physical, sexual, psychological/emotional, as well as economic abuse. [UNECE]
Domestic Violence: Violent behavior directed by one member of a household against another. [RSU]
Domestic Violence: A pattern of abusive and threatening behaviours that may include physical, emotional, economic and sexual violence as well as intimidation, isolation and coercion. The purpose of domestic violence is to establish and exert power and control over another; men most often use it against their intimate partners, such as current or former spouses, girlfriends, or dating partners. Forms of domestic violence can include physical violence, sexual violence, economic control, and psychological assault (including threats of violence and physical harm, attacks against property or pets and other acts of intimidation, emotional abuse, isolation, and use of the children as a means of control). Because they occur in intimate relationships, many kinds of abuse are often not recognized as violence. In many places throughout the world, marital rape is still not viewed as sexual assault because a husband is deemed to have a right of sexual access to his wife. Stalking, as well, has only recently been recognized as a form of violence and a severe threat to the victim. [MIGS]
Domestic Violence/Violence in the Family: Repeated, long-term and intensifying violence perpetrated by adults or juveniles on their relatives (victims can be husband/wife, partner, divorced husband/wife, child, parent, grandparent). Domestic violence can take physical, psychological, sexual, economic and other forms and most commonly comes in a combination of the above. Domestic violence is a conscious act. It begins with repeated attacks on a person's human dignity, which are usually accompanied by attacks on a person's health and in the final stage can also take the form of attacks on a person's life. Unlike other forms of delinquent behaviour, domestic violence is violence in people's relations, creates a dependency on the part of the victim towards the perpetrator and is designed to give the perpetrator power over the victim. A typical feature of domestic violence is the fact that violent acts gradually become part of their ordinary life in their constancy and varying intensity. More than 90 per cent of the victims of domestic violence are women. [CZSO]
Domestic Work: Work done primarily to maintain households. Domestic includes the provision of food and other necessities, cleaning, caring for children and the sick and elderly, etc. Domestic work is mostly performed by women and is therefore poorly valued in social and economic terms. [MIGS]
Domestic Worker: In certain countries, in order to overcome the problem of a lack of child-minding and/or care facilities, another type of female labour is used, namely domestic workers, mainly women, often immigrants sometimes undocumented and often under-paid. The demand for domestic workers is growing in the EU as a result of changes in the economy and society. In many situations, it has become necessary for households to employ women who are migrant workers so as to allow the parents who employ them to be active in the workplace and in society. [MIGS]
Dowry: is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage. The opposite - property given to the bride by the groom - is called dower or mahr. Normally the bride would be entitled to her dowry in the event of her widowhood, prior to the evolution of her dower rights. The terms "dowry" and "dower" are therefore sometimes confused. The dowry does not describe a bride price, which is in contrast money or goods paid by the prospective groom to the bride's parents in exchange for her hand in marriage. It should also be distinguished from sowry, which is the money obtained by a wife by filing false dowry case against the husband and his relatives. [Wikigender]
Dramaturgical Model: A sociological perspective that sees the social world as a stage, with all the men and women playing to their roles in the social order. [RSU]
Dual Career Family: Families in which both spouses are in the outside labor force. [RSU]
Dual Career Marriage: A marriage where both partners are employed outside of the home. [Triton]
Dual Labour Market: The hypothesis that men and women have differential earnings because the work in different parts of the labor market. For example, men dominate the field of engineering (high pay, high prestige), women dominate the field of social work (low pay, low prestige). [RSU]
