Gender-Bias Tendencies Found Among 90% Of People Across The Globe
Recently conducted UNDP’s ‘Gender Social Norm Index’ signals towards a massive gender prejudice prevailing across the majority of the global population.
Recent findings by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) suggests that around 90% of the global population are prejudiced against women.
This shockingly comes at a time and date, when attempts are being consciously made to close the equality gap. The survey shows that around 86% of women and 91% of men hold at least one prejudice against women – be it political, reproductive, economical, or educational rights.
In this maiden ‘gender social norm index’ or the GSNI conducted by the UNDP, data has been analyzed from nearly 75 of the world’s most populated countries, which make up 80% of the global population.
According to this report, about 50% of people think that men make better politicians than women, while 40% are of the belief that women do not make as good business leaders as men. Furthermore, and quite shockingly enough, a third of people – including women – think it is absolutely okay for a man to beat his woman.
Interestingly, this data was collected in two parts, each of which spanned over a period of four years. The first part was between 2005 and 2009, while the second part was conducted between 2010 and 2014.
Notably, of the 75 countries participating in this case study, the population of only six countries believed that there should be no disparity between the genders. Even progressive countries such as the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Andorra, Sweden, and Norway, only 50% of the population voted in favor of a gender bias-free society.
Talking about the GSNI findings, Pedro Conceição, the director of UNDP’s human development report office, elucidated,
“We all know we live in a male-dominated world, but with this report, we are able to put some numbers behind these biases… And the numbers, I consider them shocking,”
Highlighting how the matter is getting worse in certain places, he said,
“If you take the overall average of the information we have, we show that on average we are sliding back – that biases, instead of shrinking, are growing back.”
This pattern is exemplified in several countries, including Sweden, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Rwanda, where the tendency towards gender prejudice has increased over the nine years. Apart from these countries, more than half of the population in the UK and the USA held at least one prejudice against women.
Although there are certain countries that have shown overall mitigation of gender prejudices when it comes to the findings in 75 countries as a whole, these few countries represent a massive minority.
As an aftermath of this terrifying survey, the UNDP has called on governments to introduce strict policies and legislations that would help in terminating these gender prejudices that are ingrained in the minds of people irrespective of their genders.