The year is 2023, on social media and in most narratives, we have gender disparity, that men and women are equals. However, as per a UN report released on Monday, progress in gender equality has remained stagnant for the past decade.
What’s more, a disturbingly huge chunk of the world population — one in four people or 25 per cent of people — think it is justified for a man to beat his wife.
Some other findings of the United Nations report
The latest Gender Social Norms Index released by the United Nations has uncovered some startling findings. The index, which relies on data obtained from the World Values Survey (WVS), an international research programme, evaluated data from countries and territories that account for roughly 85 per cent of the world’s population.
Data collected between 2010-2014 and 2017-2022 revealed that “biased gender social norms are still prevalent” among both men and women. Almost 90 per cent of people have at least one gender bias.
As per the report, 69 per cent of the world population still believes that compared to women, men make better political leaders. Only 29 per cent believe that it is essential for men and women to have the same rights in a democracy.
A whopping 46 per cent of the people believe that “men should have more rights to a job than women”. Around 43 per cent think that men make better business executives than women do.
If we talk about education, 28 per cent of the people said that a university education is more important for men.
Twenty-five per cent of the world population thinks men can beat their wives. 58 per cent deny women their physical integrity and say that they cannot opt for abortion in any case and that it is never “justifiable”.
Is it just the men that contain these biases?
AFP reports that, as per the UN, these prejudices “are widespread among men and women, suggesting that these biases are deeply embedded and influence both men and women to similar degrees”.
What do these biases do?
These biases or prejudices create “hurdles” for women. These then go on to dismantle “women’s rights in many parts of the world with movements against gender equality gaining traction and, in some countries, a surge of human rights violations”.
But it is just women who lose out? The report poses several questions.
“What are we missing out on as societies because we have so few women leaders? Would the world look different if we had gender parity in leadership? Could equal participation of women in key decision-making areas better equip us to deal with challenges such as pandemics, climate change and conflict? What do we stand to lose if we continue to exclude women in decision-making?”
As per Pedro Conceicao, director of the UNDP’s Human Development Report Office, “Social norms that impair women’s rights are also detrimental to society more broadly, dampening the expansion of human development.”
“Everyone stands to gain from ensuring freedom and agency for women,” said Conceicao, as reported by news agency AFP.
(With inputs from agencies)
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