New York - Nearly nine in 10 people worldwide hold some
form of gender bias, a new report from the United Nations Development
Programme has found.
In a survey that included people from 75 countries, the UNDP found
that progress toward gender equality has essentially stalled out over
the past decade, after consistent progress over the previous century.
The survey, published Thursday, looked for gender bias across seven
statements that respondents could either agree or disagree with on a
sliding scale. Statements ranged from political assertions like "Men
make better political leaders than women do" and economic statements
like "Men should have more right to a job than women" to queries
involving reproductive rights and intimate partner violence.
According to the report, only 13.9 per cent of women and 9.4 per cent
of men showed no bias on all seven indicators, while everyone else
showed bias on at least one and in most cases more. Nearly half of
those polled believed men were better political leaders, while more
than 40 per cent thought they were better business executives.
Disturbingly, 28 per cent believed a man could be justified in
beating his wife, according to the UN report.
The results, the UNDP says, shine a light on what they call "power
gaps" and how they continue in our society. For example, fewer than 6
per cent of CEOs in S&P 500 companies are women. Additionally, only
24 per cent of parliamentary seats are held by women, and out of 193
member states, only 10 heads of government are female, despite the
fact that men and women vote at roughly equal rates.
"The work that has been so effective in ensuring an end to gaps in
health or education must now evolve to address something far more
challenging: a deeply ingrained bias - among both men and women -
against genuine equality," said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner.
According to the organization's Gender Inequality Index, which is a
measure of women's empowerment in health, education and economic
status, progress toward resolving these inequalities has slowed in
recent years. In the 20th century, women around the world won basic
rights, including the right to vote and get an education, but in the
21st century, current trends show that disparities in economic power
and political representation won't be fixed anytime soon.
"We have come a long way in recent decades to ensure that women have
the same access to life's basic needs as men", said the head of
UNDP's Human Development Report Office, Pedro Conceicao. "(But)
gender gaps are still all too obvious in other areas, particularly
those that challenge power relations and are most influential in
actually achieving true equality."