Policy, programme or situation that has no differential positive or negative impact in terms of gender relations or equality between women and men.
The term ‘gender-neutral’ means that something is not associated with either women or men. It may refer to various aspects such as concepts or style of language. However, what is often perceived to be gender-neutral, including in areas of statistics or dissemination of data collected in reference to a population, often reflects gender blindness in practice (a failure to recognise gender specificities).
(1) European Commission (1998). 100 Words for Equality: A Glossary of Terms on Equality between Women and Men;
(2) United Nations Statistics Division – UNSD. Global Gender Statistics Programme. Available at: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/genderstatmanual/Glossary.ashx
The concepts and definitions found in this glossary were published in 2016, and some may be out-of-date. EIGE is currently looking into which terms may need to be updated in the future.