IV. >> Illustrating the Framework - Indicators for Some Rights >> Considerations in preparing tables of indicators normative standards into an operational framework of public policies and programmes. It helps in making the State accountable and constitutes an important reference for the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights. The tables also reflect the role of non-State actors, including corporations Box 22 and NGOs, international cooperation (e.g., official development assistance (ODA)) and human rights mechanisms (e.g., communications with special procedures mandate holders) in furthering the implementation of human rights through suitable structural and process indicators. Statistics on gender and human rights of women Gender statistics go beyond statistics disaggregated by sex. Sex relates to biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women. Gender refers to the relationship between women and men based on socially or culturally constructed and defined identities, status, roles and responsibilities that are assigned to one or the other sex. Gender is not static or innate but acquires socially and culturally constructed meaning over time.a Gender is “the social meaning given to biological sex differences. It is an ideological and cultural construct, but is also reproduced within the realm of material practices; in turn it influences the outcomes of such practices. It affects the distribution of resources, wealth, work, decision-making and political power, and enjoyment of rights and entitlements within the family as well as public life. Despite variations across cultures and over time, gender relations throughout the world entail asymmetry of power between men and women as a pervasive trait. Thus, gender is a social stratifier, and in this sense it is similar to other stratifiers such as race, class, ethnicity, sexuality and age. It helps us understand the social construction of gender identities and the unequal structure of power that underlies the relationship between the sexes”.b The human rights normative framework, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the recommendations adopted by its Committee, provides the legal basis and practical guidance for promoting and developing gender statistics. In addition to disaggregating commonly compiled statistics by sex (e.g., proportion of women in senior civil servants positions), making women more visible in statistics and monitoring gender equality require women-specific statistics (e.g., maternal morbidity and mortality statistics), expanding statistics in critical areas, such as poverty (e.g., the distribution of resources within households or the amount of unpaid work carried out by women), access to assets (e.g., ownership of land, housing), exposure to violence (e.g., domestic violence, early or forced marriage) and harmful traditional practices (e.g., female genital mutilation, honour killings), empowerment and decision-making (e.g., proportion of women elected to parliament), and on societal attitudes (e.g., perceived role and contribution of women vis-à-vis men to family and social life). It also calls for the compilation of information on men that was traditionally collected only for women (e.g., contraceptive use). All the indicators identified in the tables below can potentially be disaggregated by sex and are relevant to monitoring gender equality and the human rights of women. In addition, there are tables (on non-discrimination and equality, violence against women), attributes of rights (e.g., sexual and reproductive health in the table on the right to health) and several indicators (e.g., access of women and girls to adequate food within households) that address gender concerns more specifically. a. O  ffice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “Guidelines on international protection: Gender-Related Persecution within the context of article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees” (HCR/GIP/02/01), para. 3. b. 1  999 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development: Globalization, Gender and Work (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.99.IV.8), p. ix. Sources: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and World Bank Institute, Developing Gender Statistics: A Practical Tool (United Nations, 2010). Available from www.unece.org. Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women; and Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, general recommendations No. 9 (1989) on statistical data concerning the situation of women and No. 25 (2004) on temporary special measures. Human Rights Indicators 75