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While it is widely acknowledged that gender equality and women’s empowerment act as catalysts for achieving sustainable development, many efforts still focus on advocacy and isolated activities. The challenge ahead lies in forging alliances between gender equality and every policy and programme for sustainable development. This includes forests, a key ecosystem that simultaneously underpins local livelihoods, national economies and the global fight to mitigate climate change.

The fate of forests is inextricably linked to gender issues. In rural areas, women play critical roles within forests, as users and custodians: women’s knowledge and practices of forests sustain household economies and healthy ecosystems alike. Yet forestry is a male-dominated sector, with men leading the key economic and policy decisions related to forests. This paradox is further aggravated by persistent socioeconomic, cultural and legal barriers that prevent women to fully participate in, contribute to, and benefit from forest policy and management efforts.

The only way ahead is, first, to acknowledge the differentiated and valuable knowledge, skills and roles of women and men in forest resources and management; and then, to integrate such gender differentiated perspectives into policy and programme responses. Such a forest-gender nexus will support the achievement of various Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 5 (gender equality), SDG 13 (climate action) and SDG 15 (life on land). As gender gaps and barriers do not rest on a multitude of issues, undertaking gender mainstreaming cannot be a one-off activity. It is rather a cross-cutting issue, with multiple entry points to pursue.

Clinical and epidemiological evidence suggests that ischemic stroke (IS) risk, etiology, response to treatment, and outcome are different between men and women. Females tend to have more cardioembolic stroke and men more arterial and lacunar stroke. Differences in response to thrombolysis and functional outcome may also exist between the sexes.

The sex differences in IS have frequently been attributed to hormonal differences, including estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. However, some X-linked diseases can affect the brain, clotting, and the immune response independent of hormonal effects such as Fragile X, hemophilia, and Fabry disease. Thus, we sought to determine whether there is sex- specific expression of genes on the X-chromosome after IS. 

The human X-chromosome has many features that are unique in the human genome. Females inherit 1 X-chromosome from each parent, whereas males inherit a single, maternal X-chromosome. Gene expression on 1 of the female X-chromosomes is silenced during development by X-chromosome inactivation. However, for X-chromosome inactivation “escapees” (15%–25% of the X-chromosome genes), differential expression as well as developmental reactivation of the inactive copy have been reported. In males, the short tips of the X-chromosome can recombine with the equivalent segments on the Y-chromosome (pseudoautosomal regions). Genes outside these regions of the X-chromosome are strictly X-linked and most do not have homologs on the Y-chromosome. There are homologous genes on the X-chromosome, outside of the pseudoautosomal regions, but their functional similarity to the Y-chromosome paralogs is unclear. X/Y paralogs have a sex-specific pattern of expression, which suggests these paralogs may not have equivalent functions. Biological sex affected X-chromosome gene expression in blood after IS. Although some of the X-chromosome gene expression changes were identical in both sexes, some were unique to males or females. These findings suggest that the X-chromosome contributes to differences that exist between men and women with IS. Although a number of the biological processes presented subsequently have been implicated in playing a key role in the response to stroke, most of the individual genes have not been associ- ated with vascular risk factors or stroke nor have their sexually dimorphic patterns of expression been suggested in human studies. Genes expressed within the first 3-hour time window are among the most interesting because they are unaffected by treatment and are being induced during the time when acute stroke therapy is likely to be beneficial. Genes that change expression in the 3- to 5-hour time period might be those most likely to be affected by treatment because treatment was initiated after the first blood sample but before 3 hours after stroke. Genes expressed at 24 hours likely represent the full complement of the immune cell changes associated with cell death, cellular phagocytosis as well as in the beginnings of repair. 

Fillingim RB1, King CD, Ribeiro-Dasilva MC, Rahim-Williams B, Riley JL 3rd.

Sex-related influences on pain and analgesia have become a topic of tremendous scien- tific and clinical interest, especially in the last 10 to 15 years. Members of our research group published reviews of this literature more than a decade ago, and the intervening time period has witnessed robust growth in research regarding sex, gender, and pain. Therefore, it seems timely to revisit this literature. Abundant evidence from recent epidemiologic studies clearly demonstrates that women are at substantially greater risk for many clinical pain conditions, and there is some sug- gestion that postoperative and procedural pain may be more severe among women than men. Consistent with our previous reviews, current human findings regarding sex differences in experimental pain indicate greater pain sensitivity among females compared with males for most pain modalities, including more recently implemented clinically relevant pain models such as temporal summation of pain and intramuscular injection of algesic substances. The evidence regarding sex differences in laboratory measures of endogenous pain modulation is mixed, as are findings from studies using functional brain imaging to ascertain sex differences in pain-related cerebral activation. Also inconsistent are findings regarding sex differences in responses to pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic pain treatments. The article concludes with a discussion of potential biopsychosocial mechanisms that may underlie sex differences in pain, and considerations for future research are discussed. 

Given that the clinical pain conditions to which preclinical research is intended to apply are female-pre- dominant, one could argue that preclinical research that excludes females is incomplete at best and invalid at worst. Moreover, clinical studies, which typically include participants of both sexes, should consistently analyze for sex differences and report the findings, whether positive or negative. This would help overcome publication biases, which could overestimate sex differences based on the reduced likelihood of reporting negative findings. Another important conceptual and analytical concern is the distinction between qualitative and quantitative sex differences. Most of the studies reviewed above address quantitative differences, which refers to whether females and males dis- play different amounts of pain or analgesia. In contrast, qualitative sex differences are present when a given variable influences pain or analgesia differently in women versus men. Because qualitative differences may indicate sex-specific pain mechanisms they represent the most 

compelling rationale for the development of sex-specific pain treatments. Thus, even in the absence of quantitative sex differences, researchers should conduct analyses to un- cover potential qualitative sex differences, which simply in- volves including sex as a moderator in the statistical model.

In this era of translational science, an important goal for future research in this area is to generate information that will enhance pain treatment for both sexes. Despite the challenges of translational research, several opportunities that could be exploited to enhance translation have previously been suggested. For example, human laboratory pain models and genetic research could both serve as translational bridges between laboratory findings from nonhuman animals and clinical populations. For example, Mogil and colleagues successfully translated a novel sex-related genetic association (ie, the melanocortin-1-receptor gene, MC1R) with analgesic responses across species using experimental pain models in both mice and humans. To complete the translational continuum, it is important to determine whether sex-related genetic associations such as these discovered in the laboratory setting will extend to clinical populations. Human brain imaging represents another methodology that holds promise for facilitating mechanistic and translational advancements, and increased application of imaging to enhance understanding of sex differences in pain and analgesia is strongly recommended. We would like to echo the important issues demanding future investigation as delineated in the recent consensus report from the IASP Special Interest Group on Sex, Gender, and Pain, including identifying hormonal versus chromosomal contributions to sex differences in pain/analgesia; understanding the contribution of local (versus gonadal release) hormonal effects; elucidating the role of psychological factors; understanding whether pain chronicity contributes to sex differences; distinguishing the roles of sexual dimorphism in ascending versus descending modulatory pathways; determining the cellular and molecular bases of sex differences in pain/ analgesia; understanding sex differences across the lifespan; and considering whether diagnostic criteria for some pain disorders should be sex-specific. Empirical attention to these issues will further advance knowledge regarding sex, gender, and pain and could lead to sex- specific enhancements in clinical pain management in the not too distant future. 

The GREAT Course in Gender-responsive Cereal Grain Breeding is for:

• Agricultural scientists seeking to address gender issues in their research on cereal grains
• Social scientists working with agricultural scientists to address gender in cereal grains research projects
• Researchers who want to enable more equitable outcomes for men, women, girls and boys 

GREAT courses are intensive, cohort-based trainings for small, interdisciplinary teams of researchers from leading agricultural research institutes across sub-Saharan Africa.

Is gender missing in your cereal grain breeding research project?

Ignoring gender differences in cereal grain breeding means we miss half of the potential client base for improved varieties, technologies, markets and innovations. More importantly, we miss the opportunity to positively impact smallholder farmers who are women, and reduce chances for better nutrition and education outcomes for the whole community. Donors are increasingly insisting on gender-responsive research proposals, making the knowledge, tools and experience to conduct gender-responsive research increasingly essential across agricultural research disciplines.

The GREAT Gender-responsive Cereal Grain Breeding Course offers gender training for cereal grain researchers to develop skills in gender-responsiveness along the design, implementation, evaluation, and communication stages of agricultural research projects.