Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: A new UNDP report on Gender Social Norms Index, covering 85 per cent of the global population, has revealed that close to 9 out of 10 men and women hold fundamental biases against women.
Nearly half the world’s people believe that men make better political leaders than women do, and two of five people believe that men make better business executives than women do. A staggering 25 per cent of people believe it is justified for a man to beat his wife, according to the report.
The report showed that the global GSNI value changed very little over the years, showing the persistence of gender bias in social norms. While the bias might be least in attitudes towards education, the report showed how the link between women’s progress in education and economic empowerment was broken.
Only 27 per cent of the people believe that women having same rights as men is essential for a democracy, noted the report. Gender biases are pronounced in both low and high Human Development Index (HDI) countries. These biases hold across regions, income, level of development and cultures— making them a global issue.
The GSNI quantifies biases against women, capturing people’s attitudes on women’s roles along four key dimensions: political, educational, economic and physical integrity.
