[1][2] The Gender is one of many small streams that drain what once was the marshy heath and moorland of eastern North Brabant and the Kempen plateau.

[3] Archaeological excavations during the 1980s and 1990s before the construction of a new shopping centre have brought several branches of the artificial inner-city section of the Gender to light, including a connection to the moat of Eindhoven Castle, which stood just east of the city walls.

[4][5] 20th-century channelisation and the emergence of large-scale residential areas in the Gender basin have seen the last stretch before the city centre cut off.

In order to regulate water levels of the Dommel and Gender streams, which occasionally threatened to flood Eindhoven's inner city area, a drainage canal (Afwateringskanaal) was dug in the late 1930s to connect the Dommel to the newly constructed Beatrix Canal and so dispose of excess water.

A further downstream section of the Gender between the canal and the Engelsbergen pond remains, but receives little water of the original stream.