Since the early 1970s gender has increasingly played a role in development discourse, policy and planning. Within refugee and forced migration studies, however, gender analysis was severely neglected until the mid-1980s. This essay will consider the origins of contemporary notions of 'gender' within the social sciences and will argue that it is relational, affecting both men and women, and that it is a primary factor in the organization of social life and will argue that gender is a key factor in access to power, as are ethnicity and class, and that these are also gendered constructs. It will subsequently relate gender analysis to the field of forced migration, arguing that, since gender is the main factor in all forms of power relations, gender analysis is fundamental to the production of knowledge and emancipatory action and that data collection has been neglected in this regard. It will consider the history and development of gender discourse in the context of forced migration and provide a critique of the effectiveness of gender response strategies. Finally, we will conclude with summary statements outlining areas of interest. The concept of "gender" in social sciences is often confused with "sex", although "sex" refers to a biological reality while the notion of "gender" is a social reality. build. Early gender analyzes viewed “gender” as related only to women: men had no gender. Post-structuralist and post-feminist frameworks of analysis have begun to problematize this notion, considering gender as a set of social and cultural ideas, symbols, practices and beliefs through which we act and "know" the world in which we live. Today, gender is about the interdependence and interrelationships between men and women. It is seen as a key relationship... at the heart of the document... Aryan Issues. (1986), Refugees: The Dynamics of the Displaced (London: Zed Books). Indra, D. (1999), 'Not a "Room of One's Own": Engendering Forced Migration Knowledge and Practice', in D. Indra (ed.), Engendering Forced Migration: Theory and Practice (New York: Berghahn Books ). Korac, M. (2006), "Gender, Conflict and Peace Building: Lessons from the awareness of the former Yugoslavia", Women's Studies International Forum, 29 (5), 510-20. Mahler, S. J. & Pessar, A. H. (2006) , "Gender Matters: Ethnnographers Bring Gender from the Periphery Toward the Core of Migation Studies.", International Migration Review, 40 (1), 27-63 .Marfleet, P (2006), Refugees in a global era (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).UNHCR '2008 Global Trends: Refugees, Asylum-seekers, Returnees, Internally Displaced and Stateless Persons', , consulted 31/10/2009.