This chapter considers Theme 4 of the "Hamburg Declaration": Adult learning, gender equality and equity, and the empowerment of women. It has a fourfold purpose. It begins with a review of the balance of progress to date in conceptualizing gender. Second, it examines the objectives of CONFINTEA V and VI from a gender perspective. Third, it assesses the impact of CONFINTEA V and the "Hamburg" Declaration. Fourth, it analyzes the likely path of future state action on adult education. Gender is a system of tangible as well as subtle oppression that, building on social constructions of femininity and masculinity, permeates institutional practices and individual beliefs in ways that render the asymmetrical distribution of freedom and power a "natural" and uncontested reality. Gender inequalities have now been reframed as an issue of human rights. Gender justice is a newly emerging concept. Richer than the notion of gender equality, it considers fairness as more than simply numerical parity.