Sex and Gender in the Research Process Women* and men face different living conditions and have different opportunities in everyday life and society due to gender roles that are socially and culturally ascribed to them. They develop maniforld interests, and needs are thus affected in very different ways by social processes and the results of such processes. These socially ascribed gender roles can however be transformed and altered. The concept of gender needs to be differentiated from the concept of sex (biological sex). Such a differentiation allows us to distinguish between biological sex and social gender. If latent differences with regard to sex and/or gender are not adequately taken into account, reserachers may arrive at assuptions and interpretations that are distorted; this process is referred to as gender bias¹, i.e. a gender-specific distortion of assumptions and interpretations. If you only differtiate between women* and men*, this suggests that these tow groups are homogenous groups. Diffeences within these tow groups cannot be represented and gender stereotypes may thus be perpetuated. It is therefore important to take into account different diverstiy traits (e.g. age, ethnic origin, religion, physical skills, social status, etc.) and possibly analyze intersecting categroies (intersectionality). * The asterisk ("gender star") is used to indicate the social and cultural constructedness of these terms; when it is used in combination with women* and man* it is intended to signal openness towards differnt gender identities and criticizes traditonal binary gender constructions. ¹Three different forms of gender bias (gender-related distortion effects) may be differentiated in research: "Androcentrism or overgeneralization" (male-dominated perspective and/or negelecting of one gender), "gender insesitivity" (ignoring sex and/or gender as important factors) and "double standards" (different treatment or evaluation of the same situations on the basis of sex/gender). Source: Eichler et. al., Richtlinien zur Vermeidung von Gender Bias in der Gesundheitsforschung. In: Z. f. Gesundheitswissenschaften, Issue 8, 2000, issue no. 4.