Glossary

Advocacy
The deliberate process, based on demonstrated evidence, of directly and indirectly influencing decision makers, stakeholders, and relevant audiences to support and implement actions which contribute to the fulfilment of women’s rights. (Source: UNICEF) Source: Call to action: Investing in Women’s Right to Health

All Levels
Includes all employee levels — from top management to entry level to operational functions. Source: UNICEF

Asexual
The lack of a sexual attraction or desire for other people. Source: International Labour Organization

Biphobia
The fear and hatred of, or discomfort with, people who love and are sexually attracted to more than one gender. Source: UN Women's Private Sector Accountability Framework

Bisexual
A person emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to more than one sex, gender or gender identity though not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way or to the same degree. Sometimes used interchangeably with pansexual. Source: UN Women's Private Sector Accountability Framework

Cisgender
A term used to describe a person whose gender identity aligns with those typically associated with the sex assigned to them at birth. Source: BSR

Coming Out
The process in which a person first acknowledges, accepts and appreciates their sexual orientation or gender identity and begins to share that with others. Source: UNESCO

Commitment/Policy
Policies or commitments can also be reflected in collective arrangements which regulate the terms and conditions between an employer and employee or group of employees.

Does the company encourage suppliers and vendors to advance performance on gender equality?
Regardless of a company’s overall commitment to gender equality at headquarters, low standards of business conduct in their value and supply chains can seriously undermine and discredit any global efforts to protect the rights of women. Actively engaging with suppliers and encouraging them to commit to gender equality enables companies to address social, ethical, and environmental impacts within the value and supply chains, protect the long-term viability of their business, secure a social license to operate, and increase labour productivity. Sources: BSR, UN Global Compact

Due Diligence and Human Rights Impact Assessments
The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) state that companies should have policies and processes appropriate to their size and circumstances, to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how they address their potential and actual impacts on human rights. These practices should be integrated into a company’s management systems and broader strategy. They should extend to all business relationships, including potential suppliers and vendors, to ensure these business relationships do not violate the company’s commitment to responsible business. Due diligence on suppliers and vendors could include: human rights impact assessments, worker surveys, sustainability ratings, and reviewing information submitted to operational level grievance mechanisms. (United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights)

Financial Support
Financial support could include any donations, philanthropy, or pro-bono support for a project or work related to gender equality.

Gay
A person who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to members of the same gender. Men, women and non-binary people may use this term to describe themselves. Source: UN Women

Gender binary
A system in which gender is constructed into two strict categories of male or female. Gender identity is expected to align with the sex assigned at birth and gender expressions and roles fit traditional expectations. Source: Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

Gender dysphoria
Clinically significant distress caused when a person's assigned birth gender is not the same as the one with which they identify. Source: UNESCO

Gender-expansive
A person with a wider, more flexible range of gender identity and/or expression than typically associated with the binary gender system. Often used as an umbrella term when referring to young people still exploring the possibilities of their gender expression and/or gender identity. Source: UN Women's Private Sector Accountability Framework

Gender expression
External appearance of one's gender identity, usually expressed through behaviour, clothing, body characteristics or voice, and which may or may not conform to socially defined behaviours and characteristics typically associated with being either masculine or feminine. Source: Global Reporting Initiative

Gender-fluid
A person who does not identify with a single fixed gender or has a fluid or unfixed gender identity. Source: BSR

Gender identity
One’s innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither — how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One's gender identity can be the same or different from the sex they were assigned at birth. Source: International Labour Organization

Gender non-conforming
A broad term referring to people who do not behave in a way that conforms to the traditional expectations of their gender, or whose gender expression does not fit neatly into a category. While many also identify as transgender, not all gender non-conforming people do. Source: International Labour Organization

Genderqueer
Genderqueer people typically reject notions of static categories of gender and embrace a fluidity of gender identity and often, though not always, sexual orientation. People who identify as "genderqueer" may see themselves as being both male and female, neither male nor female or as falling completely outside these categories. Source: United States Department of Labour

Homophobia
The fear and hatred of or discomfort with people who are attracted to members of the same sex. Source: Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

Intersex
Intersex people are born with a variety of differences in their sex traits and reproductive anatomy. There is a wide variety of difference among intersex variations, including differences in genitalia, chromosomes, gonads, internal sex organs, hormone production, hormone response, and/or secondary sex traits. Sources: Global Reporting Initiative, UN Women(based on UN General Assembly 1979, article 1)

Lesbian
A woman who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to other women. Women and non-binary people may use this term to describe themselves. Sources: Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, UN Women's Private Sector Accountability Framework

LGBTIQ+
An acronym for “lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex and queer” people. Source: International Labour Organization (Part-Time Work Convention, 1994)

Non-binary
An adjective describing a person who does not identify exclusively as a man or a woman. Non-binary people may identify as being both a man and a woman, somewhere in between, or as falling completely outside these categories. While many also identify as transgender, not all non-binary people do. Non-binary can also be used as an umbrella term encompassing identities such as agender, bigender, genderqueer or gender-fluid. Source: International Labour Organization

Outing
Exposing someone’s lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex or queeridentity to others without their permission. Outing someone can have serious repercussions on employment, economic stability, personal safety or religious or family situations. Sources: BSR, Business Dictionary, WEPs

Overall ratio, ratio by employee category of basic salary, and remuneration of women to men
When calculating pay ratios it is important to look at the overall ratio as well as the ratio by employee category. The overall ratio compares the pay average for all employees across the organization, disaggregated by sex. The overall ratio does not take into consideration employee level or contract type. Ratio by employee level compares average pay, by sex, within each employee level and contract type (i.e. comparing entry level women to entry level men). When calculating the average, employers should use both the mean and median. The median compares typical values and is less affected by extreme values. The median gives a better indication of typical pay and inequalities experienced by the majority of women. The mean gives a sense of the vast differences across pay distribution. In environments where high earners are predominantly male, the mean gives a clearer understanding of gender disparities in income. Sources: Business in the Community, GRI, learn how to calculate pay ratio

Pansexual
Describes someone who has the potential for emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to people of any gender though not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way or to the same degree. Sometimes used interchangeably with bisexual.

Permanent Worker—Temporary Worker
The definition of permanent worker varies from country to country, but typically includes those employed in a position without a pre-determined time limit. Temporary work, whereby workers are engaged for a specific period of time, includes fixed-term, project or task-based contracts, as well as seasonal or casual work, including day labour. Sources: Business Dictionary, ILO

Professional Development
Refers to specialized training, formal education or advanced professional training provided to employees and funded by the company. Source: World Health Organization

Professional Networks
Professional networks refer to professional relationships or opportunities that may boost one's future business and employment prospects. The company can support internal employee networks in which members can discuss specific challenges to professional development, opportunities that foster an inclusive workplace environment, and skills needed to advance. Ensuring networks are available to women is essential to recruiting, retention, and advancement. (Source: Drawn from the definition of networks on Investopedia) Sources: Business Dictionary, McKinsey & Company, PGLE

Public Statement
A public statement or commitment can include a letter to stakeholders, signing the CEO Statement of Support, a written blog or editorial piece. The public statement can set the tone, vision, culture, and values of a company. (Source: UN Women’s Private Sector Accountability Framework)

Queer
A term people often use to express a spectrum of identities and orientations that are counter to the mainstream. Queer is often used as a catch-all to include many people, including those who do not identify as exclusively straight and/or folks who have non-binary or gender-expansive identities. This term was previously used as a slur, but has been reclaimed by many parts of the LGBTIQ+ movement. Source: Drawn from the definition of networks onInvestopedia

Questioning
A term used to describe people who are in the process of exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity. Source: UN Women's Private Sector Accountability Framework

Respect vs. Support of Human Rights
Business Enterprises have the responsibility to respect human rights. This means that companies should avoid infringing on the human rights of others and should address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved. These rights are defined in international standards and conventions. All companies have a minimum obligation to respect human rights. Support refers to other commitments or activities that business enterprises may undertake to support and promote human rights, which may contribute to the enjoyment of rights. But this does not (and should not) offset a failure to respect human rights throughout their operations. (United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights) Source: International Labour Organization

Responsible Marketing
Responsible marketing practices are those that some companies adopt to acknowledge the larger social and environmental impacts of their products and services. In the context of LGBTIQ+ rights, responsible marketing refers to marketing practices that do not perpetuate harmful or negative stereotypes about the LGBTIQ+ community, as well as to use marketing practices that convey support for the LGBTIQ+ community by promoting positive images of the LGBTIQ+ community that can, in turn, help to dismantle negative stereotypes.

Same-gender loving
A term some prefer to use instead of lesbian, gay or bisexual to express attraction to and love of people of the same gender. Source: UN Global Compact

Sex assigned at birth
The sex, male, female or intersex, that a doctor or midwife uses to describe a child at birth based on their external anatomy. Sources: Global Reporting Initiative, GRI 401

Sexual orientation
An inherent or immutable enduring emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to other people. Note: an individual’s sexual orientation is independent of their gender identity. Sources: UN Stats, UN Women

Specific Support for Women
Companies may have professional development programmes to help all employees further develop their professional and technical skills. However in order to ensure women have equal professional development opportunities it is important to explicitly address the professional development paths for women (needs and challenges of women can differ to those of men). Source: WEPs

Stakeholders
A person, group, or organization that has interest or concern in an organization. Stakeholders can affect or be affected by the organization's actions, objectives, and policies. Stakeholders can include: investors, consumers, civil society, governments, and local communities. When engaging stakeholders it is important to engage both male and female members of the affected/involved party. (Sources: adapted from UNGP Reporting). Sources: UN Global Compact, WEPs

Superannuation
Superannuation refers to regular payments into a retirement fund. Research shows there is a superannuation gender gap because of the gender pay gap and the tendency for women, as primary care takers, to have more fragmented work patterns (maternity leave, childcare, dependent care etc.). Sources: OECD, Parliament of Australia

Supply Chain
Supply Chain refers to cross-border organization of the activities required to produce goods or services and bring them to consumers through inputs and various phases of development, production, and delivery Source: ILO

Supply Chain
Supply chain refers to the cross-border organization of the activities required to produce goods or services and bring them to consumers through inputs and various phases of development, production, and delivery. (Source: ILO) Sources: Sloan Work and Family Research Network, Society for Human Resource Management

Talent Pipeline
Pipeline refers to an organization’s ongoing need to have a pool of talent (in this case a pool of qualified women) that is readily available to fill positions at all levels of management (as well as other key positions) as the company grows. At each level, different competencies, knowledge, and experiences are required, and (to keep the pipeline filled) the organization must have programs designed to develop appropriate skills sets. In order to achieve gender balance at the senior management level, it is crucial for companies to invest, train, and provide equal opportunities for women throughout the organization so that they can assume those leadership roles. Source: Bersin by Deloitte

Talent Pipeline
A talent pipeline is a pool of candidates who are qualified and prepared to fill a position. These can be employees who are prospects for advancement or external candidates partially or fully prequalified to take an opening. Source: Male Champions of Change

Telecommuting
Work carried out in a location where, remote from central offices or production facilities, the worker has no personal contact with co-workers, but is able to communicate with them using technology. Source: Vittorio Di Martino, (article in theInternational Labour Reviewjournal, 1990)

Tracking employees that take advantage of parental or care benefits
Tracking and reporting data, disaggregated by sex, can help a company identify: who is using the benefits, if programmes and benefits are successful in retaining women and men employees who are primary caregivers, and areas for improvement in addressing caregiver needs.

Tracking employees that take advantage of work/life benefits
Tracking and reporting data, disaggregated by sex, can help a company identify: who is using the benefits, if programmes and benefits are successful in retaining women and men (particularly employees that value a balanced work life), and areas for improvement.

Transgender
An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or expression is different from cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth. Being transgender does not imply any specific sexual orientation. Therefore, transgender people may identify as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc. Source: UN Women

Transitioning
A series of processes that some transgender people may undergo in order to live more fully as their true gender. This typically includes social transition, such as changing name and pronouns, medical transition, which may include hormone therapy or gender-affirming surgeries, and legal transition, which may include changing legal name and sex on government identity documents. Transgender people may choose to undergo some, all or none of these processes. Sources: Business Dictionary, UN Global Compact

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs)
The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations 'Protect, Respect and Remedy' Framework — commonly referred to as the “UNGPs” — provide an authoritative global standard for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse human rights impacts linked to business activity. They stress the importance of integrating a gender perspective into human rights risk management. (United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights) Sources: The Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, UN Global Compact

Underrepresented Roles
Roles or occupations that are typically dominated by one gender. Underrepresented roles or non-traditional occupations refer to “occupations for which individuals from one gender comprise less than 25% of the individuals employed in each such occupation." Source: ITUC

UN Standards of Conduct
The UN Standards of Conduct for Business in Tackling Discrimination against LGBTI People were developed by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in 2017 following consultations with business and civil society representatives in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. The UN Standards of Conduct build on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011. Source: EDGE Certification

Value Chain
A business enterprise’s value chain encompasses the activities that convey input into output by adding value. It includes entities with which it has a direct or indirect business relationship and which either (a) supply products or services that contribute to the enterprise’s own products or services, or (b) receive products or services from the enterprise. Source: The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

Value Chain
A business enterprise’s value chain encompasses the activities that convey input into output by adding value. It includes entities with which it has a direct or indirect business relationship and which either (a) supply products or services that contribute to the enterprise’s own products or services, or (b) receive products or services from the enterprise. (United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights) Source: International Labour Organization

Vendors
While all companies may not source goods or services as inputs to an end product, all companies, whether big or small, buy products and services for their business to function (i.e. office supplies, cleaning services etc.). When buying these goods and services companies are encouraged to seek out both women and men suppliers.

Violence Against Women
Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life. Acts of violence can include: (a) Physical, sexual, and psychological violence occurring in the family, including battering, sexual abuse of female children in the household, dowry-related violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation, and other traditional practices harmful to women, non-spousal violence, and violence related to exploitation; (b) Physical, sexual, and psychological violence occurring within the general community, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere, trafficking in women, and forced prostitution Source: UN Women

Women-Owned Business
While definitions can vary from country to country, UN Women defines Women-Owned Business as a business that is 51% or more owned, operated, and controlled by one or more women. WEConnect International, a global organization that certifies women-owned businesses, uses the following criteria to further define “control:” 51% ownership by one or more women; day to day and long term control and management of the business by one or more women; contribution of capital and/or expertise by women; and operated independently from other non-certified businesses. It is critical that there is an emphasis on ownership and control by women to avoid tokenism and illicit practices such as fronting. Inclusive sourcing can have positive bottom line impacts by: broadening the vendor pool, creating vendor competition and thereby lowering costs; increasing innovation and diverse thought, leading to competitive advantage; and strengthening customer loyalty and brand recognition. Sources: WEConnect International, WEPs