UNITED NATIONS: According to a new UN research released on Monday, there has been no change in bias against women over the previous 10 years, with nearly nine out of 10 men and women harbouring such prejudices globally.
UN Development Programme (UNDP), in its latest Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) report, claimed, “Half of the people globally still believe men make better political leaders than women, and more than 40 percent believe men make better business executives than women.”
Pedro Conceicao, head of UNDP’s Human Development Report Office, said, “Social norms that impair women’s rights are detrimental to society more broadly, dampening the expansion of human development.”
According to the report, a staggering 25 percent of people believe it is justified for a man to beat his wife, reflecting the latest data from the World Values Survey.
The report argues that these biases drive hurdles women face, manifested in a dismantling of 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.
Biases are also reflected in the severe underrepresentation of women in leadership. On average, the share of women as heads of State or heads of government has remained around 10 percent since 1995, and in the labor market, women occupy less than a third of managerial positions.
The report also highlights a broken link between women’s educational progress and economic empowerment. Women are more skilled and educated than ever, yet even in the 59 countries where women are now more educated than men, the average gender income gap remains 39 percent in favor of men.
“Lack of progress on gender social norms is unfolding against a human development crisis,” Conceicao said, noting that the global Human Development Index (HDI) declined in 2020 for the first time on record and again the following year.
“Everyone stands to gain from ensuring freedom and agency for women,” he added.
The UNDP report emphasized that governments have a crucial role in shifting gender social norms, from adopting parental leave policies that have changed perceptions around care work responsibilities to labor market reforms that have changed beliefs around women in the workforce.
Director of UNDP’s gender team Raquel Lagunas said, “An important place to start is recognizing the economic value of unpaid care work. This can be a very effective way of challenging gender norms around how care work is viewed. In countries with the highest gender biases against women, it is estimated that women spend over six times as much time as men on unpaid care work.”
The report emphasized that despite the continued prevalence of bias against women, the data shows that change can happen.
An increase in the share of people with no bias in any indicator was evident in 27 of the 38 countries surveyed. The report’s authors said that to drive change toward greater gender equality, the focus should be expanding human development through investment, insurance, and innovation.
This includes investing in laws and policy measures that promote women’s equality in political participation, scaling up insurance mechanisms, such as strengthening social protection and care systems, and encouraging innovative interventions that could be particularly effective in challenging harmful social norms, patriarchal attitudes, and gender stereotypes.
For example, combatting online hate speech and gender disinformation can help to shift pervasive gender norms towards greater acceptance and equality, according to the report.
The report advocated for confronting societal norms head-on through education to alter people’s perspectives, policies, and legislative modifications that recognize women’s rights in all aspects of life and increase representation in political and decision-making processes. —APP
