Lesson
7 GENDER
INTEREST
AND
NEEDS
PRAYER
ENERGIZE
R
GENDER
INTEREST
AND
NEEDS
PRACTICAL
GENDER NEEDS
Practical gender needs are the needs people
identify in their socially accepted roles in society.
Practical gender needs do not challenge the gender
division of labour or women's subordinate position
in society, although rising out of them. Practical
gender needs are a response to immediate
perceived necessity, identifi ed within a specifi c are
practical in nature and are often ermed with
inadequacies in living conditions such as water
provision, health care and employment.
EXAMPLE:
Childcare Support: In many societies, women often bear the
primary responsibility for childcare. Practical needs here may
include access to childcare services or support for balancing
caregiving and work.
Access to Income-Generating Resources: Women, especially in
rural or confl ict-aff ected areas, may need access to fi nancial
resources, skills training, or markets to earn an income, in order
to meet their economic needs and support their families.
Access to Safe Water and Sanitation: Women and girls may have
specifi c needs related to hygiene (menstrual products, private
latrines), especially in environments where sanitation
infrastructure is lacking or unsafe.
Protection from Gender-Based Violence: In areas where gender-
based violence is prevalent, women may have a practical need for
safe spaces, shelters, or legal services to protect them from
violence and abuse.
STRATEGIC GENDER INTEREST
Strategic Gender Interest are the needs women identify because
of their subordinate position to men in their society. Strategic
gender interest vary according
INSERT INSERT to particular contexts.
INSERT They relate
to gender divisions of labour, power and control and may include
such issues as land rights, domestic violence, equal wages and
women's control over their bodies. Meeting strategic gender
interest helps women to achieve greater equality.
EXAMPLE:
Legal and Policy Reforms for Gender Equality
Advocating for laws that guarantee women equal inheritance rights or access to
property ownership. This addresses the systemic power imbalances that prevent women
from having economic independence.
AccessINSERT
to Reproductive Rights and Services:
INSERT INSERT
Campaigning for the right to abortion, family planning services, and comprehensive
sexual education. This need addresses control over women’s reproductive health, which
is often restricted by patriarchal social structures.
ACCESS TO EQUAL EDUCATION FOR GIRLS:
IN MANY SOCIETIES, GIRLS ARE OFTEN DENIED THE SAME EDUCATIONAL
OPPORTUNITIES AS BOYS. ADDRESSING THIS STRATEGIC NEED INVOLVES CREATING
PROGRAMS OR POLICIES TO ENSURE GIRLS HAVE EQUAL ACCESS TO EDUCATION,
SCHOLARSHIPS, AND TRAINING, WHICH IN TURN EMPOWERS THEM TO BREAK CYCLES
OF POVERTY AND GENDER DISCRIMINATION.
GENDER
REPRODUCTIVE
BEHAVIOR
Gender reproductive behavior refers
to the ways individuals express their
gender and engage in reproductive
activities
BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS
Biological Mating and
Differences Pregnancy
• Men and women have • Biological drives like
different reproductive sexual attraction lead to
systems (women can get reproduction
pregnant, men produce
sperm). • Pregnancy and childbirth
• Hormones like estrogen are biological processes
and testosterone affect women experience.
reproductive behavior.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS
Gender Personal Parenthood
identity Desires Readiness
• How we feel • People may • How prepared
about our own want children someone feels
gender or not, based to be a parent
influences our on personal can depend on
reproductive beliefs or their gender
choices. family goals. and personal
feeling
SOCIETAL AND CULTURAL
FACTORS
Cultural Power and Changin
Norms Decision g Roles
• Society has ideas Makingsome
• In • Gender roles
about which relationship, gender are changing,
gender should do affects who makes with more
what in decisions about equal sharing
reproduction(wom having a children or of parent and
en as caregivers, using a household
men as providers). contraception . responsibilities
THE PHILIPPINES
REPRODUCTIVE
HEALTH LAW
“RH LAW 10354”
I N 2012, THE PHILIPPINES FINALLY SAW THE ENACTMENT
OF THE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH (RH) BILL. AFTER A LONG
AND ARDUOUS BATTLE IN THE LEGISLATIVE MILL,
SURPASSING FOUR CONGRESSES IN FACT, FILIPINOS CAN
NOW BENEFIT FROM A LAW THAT WILL PROVIDE
COMPREHENSIVE INFORMATION AND SERVICES ON
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH. WITH THE PASSAGE OF THE RH
BILL, OR WHAT IS NOW KNOWN AS RA 10354 OR THE
RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
ACT OF 2012, THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT AND LOCAL
GOVERNMENT UNITS (LGU) WILL BE ABLE TO
STRATEGICALLY AND COMPREHENSIVELY ADDRESS
PERENNIAL PROBLEMS OF THE COUNTRY ON MATERNAL
MORTALITY, CHILD MORTALITY, TEENAGE PREGNANCIES,
AND PREVALENCE OF HIV AND AIDS, AMONG OTHERS. IN
THE SAME MANNER, RA 10354 IS ALSO SEEN TO
CONTRIBUTE IN ADDRESSING POPULATION AND
DEVELOPMENT CONCERNS OF THE COUNTRY – FOREMOST
OF WHICH IS POVERTY.
WHAT IS THE RH LAW?
Republic Act 10354 or the Responsible Parenthood and
Reproductive Health Law of 2012 (RH Law) is a national
policy that mandates the Philippine government to
comprehensively address the needs of Filipino citizens
when it comes to responsible parenthood and reproductive
health. As such, the RH Law guarantees the following: (1)
access to services on Reproductive Health (RH) and Family
Planning (FP), with due regard to the informed choice of
individuals and couples who will accept these services, (2)
maternal health care services, including skilled birth
attendance and facility-based deliveries, (3) reproductive
health and sexuality education for the youth, and (4)
regular funding for the law’s full implementation.
WHAT DOES THE RH LAW UPHOLD?
The Reproductive Health Law (RH Law) is grounded in the
fundamental human rights of individuals, including the right to
equality, health, and self-determination. It recognizes the
importance of family as the basic unit of society and promotes
gender equality and women's empowerment. The law guarantees
universal access to safe, effective, and affordable reproductive
health care services, methods, and supplies, prioritizing the needs
of women, children, and marginalized groups. It also emphasizes
the provision of accurate information and education to enable
informed decision-making.
WHO SHALL BENEFIT FROM THE RH LAW?
Foremost of the benefi ciaries of the RH Law are Filipino
women who have for long been deprived of
comprehensive information and services on RH. According
to the 2011 Family Health Survey (FHS), unmet need for
FP among married women remains high at 19.3% (10.5%
for birth spacing and 8.8% for limiting births). More
importantly, total unmet need for FP is substantially
greater among women considered poor (25.8%) compared
to non-poor women (16.6 %).ii With the RH Law in place,
women, especially the poor, will now have full access to
RH information and avail of services that they deem
necessary to address their RH concerns. In turn, women
will have the power to decide on matters that concern
their own bodies.
THE ELEMENTS OF REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH (Sec. 4, RA 10354)
1) Family planning information and services which shall include as a fi rst priority making women of
reproductive age fully aware of their respective cycles to make them aware of when fertilization is
highly probable, as well as highly improbable;
2) Maternal, infant and child health and nutrition, including breastfeeding;
3) Proscription of abortion and management of abortion complications;
4) Adolescent and youth reproductive health guidance and counseling;
5) Prevention, treatment and management of reproductive tract infections (RTI), HIV and AIDS and
other sexually transmittable infections (STI);
6) Elimination of violence against women and children and other forms of sexual and gender-
based violence;
7) Education and counseling on sexuality and reproductive health;
8) Treatment of breast and reproductive tract cancers and other gynecological conditions and
disorders;
9) Male responsibility and involvement and men’s reproductive health;
10) Prevention, treatment and management of infertility and sexual dysfunction;
11) Reproductive health education for the adolescents; and
WHAT ACTS ARE PROHIBITED
UNDER RA 10354?
c. For any health care service provider to
a. For any health care service
refuse to
provider to knowingly withhold extend quality health care services and
information or restrict the information
dissemination of, and/or on account of the person’s marital status,
intentionally provide incorrect gender,
age, religious convictions, personal
information regarding, programs
circumstances,
and services on RH including the or nature of work; the conscientious
right to informed choice and access objection of a
to a full range of legal, medically- RA 10354 lists the following as health care service provider based on his/her
safe, non-abortifacient and ethical
prohibited acts or religious beliefs shall be respected but the
eff ective FP methods;
(Sec. 23, RA 10354): same should immediately refer the person to
another
d.health
For care
any service
public provider
offi cer,within the same
elected or
b. For any health care service facility
appointed, mandated to implement the
or one which is conveniently accessible so
provider to refuse to perform provisions of RA 10354 to prohibit or
long as
legal and medically-safe RH restrict
the personthe delivery
is not of
in an emergency legal and
condition;
procedures on any person of medically-safe RH care services,
including FP; to force, coerce or induce
legal age on the ground of lack any person to use such services; to
of consent or authorization of refuse to allocate, approve or release
spouse, as in the case of any budget for RH care services; to do
married persons, and parents any act that hinders the full
implementation of a reproductive health
or guardians, as in the case of
program; all these, either personally or
minors; through a subordinate;
WHAT ACTS ARE PROHIBITED
UNDER RA 10354?
e. For any employer to suggest,
g. For ay pharmaceutical
require, unduly infl uence or
cause any applicant for
company or its agents or
employment or an employee to distributors, whether
submit himself/herself to domestic or multinational, to
sterilization, use any modern directly or indirectly collude
RA 10354 lists the following as
methods of FP, or not use such with government offi cials,
methods as a condition for prohibited acts whether appointed or elected,
employment, continued (Sec. 23, RA 10354): in the distribution,
employment, promotion or the procurement and/or sale by
provision of employment the national government and
benefi ts, or consider pregnancy LGUs of modern FP supplies,
or the number of children as a
products and devices.
ground for non-hiring or
termination from employment;
f. For any person to
falsify a Certifi cate of
Compliance to acquire a
marriage license from
the Local Civil Registrar;
and
IMPROVING
REPRODUCTIVE
HEALTH
IMPROVING REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
FAMILY PLANNING
Family planning is the ability
to choose the number and
spacing of children, and to
prevent pregnancy. It can be
achieved through the use of
contraceptive methods or
infertility treatments.
IMPROVING REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
ADOLESCENT SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE
HEALTH
Adolescent sexual and
reproductive health
(ASRHR) is the physical
and emotional well-being
of adolescents, and their
ability to make informed
choices about their bodies.
IMPROVING REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
PREVENT UNSAFE ABORTION
Involves ensuring that all individuals
have access to safe, legal, and high-
quality abortion services where
permitted, along with
comprehensive education on
contraception and family planning to
reduce unintended pregnancies. This
also includes providing post-abortion
care to manage complications and
advocating for supportive laws and
IMPROVING REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
COMBAT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Prevent and address all forms of
violence directed at women and
girls, including physical, sexual,
emotional, and psychological
abuse. This involves creating and
enforcing laws, raising
awareness, providing support
services for survivors, and
challenging societal norms that
perpetuate gender-based
IMPROVING REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
STRENGTHENING MATERNAL CHILD HEALTHCARE
SERVICES
Improving access to quality
healthcare for mothers and
children before, during, and
after childbirth. This includes
prenatal care, safe delivery,
postnatal care, and
interventions to address
nutritional needs, prevent
complications, and reduce
maternal and child mortality
IMPROVING REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
PREVENT AND TREAT SOCIAL TRANSMITTED
INFECTIONS (STIs)
Involves educating individuals
on safe sexual practices,
promoting the consistent use
of protection (like condoms),
providing regular screening
and early diagnosis, and
ensuring access to effective
medical treatment to manage
and cure infections, thereby
IMPROVING REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
INVEST IN HEALTHCARE INFRASTRUCTURE
This refers to allocating resources to
build, upgrade, and maintain medical
facilities, equipment, and systems to
ensure accessible, high-quality
healthcare services. This includes
constructing clinics and hospitals,
training healthcare workers, and
adopting advanced technologies to
improve healthcare delivery, especially
in underserved areas
ACTIVITYY!!!
THANK YOU
VERY MUCH!
