shocking UN report: 25% of people in 80 nations believe that assaulting a spouse is acceptable

A United Nations research revealed that despite the growth of women’s rights organisations and social movements over the last ten years, the world’s progress towards gender equality has remained stagnant. Nearly 90% of men and women, or nearly nine out of ten men and women globally, were found to have “at least one” basic prejudice against women, according to the study.

The Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) study, which was produced by the UN Development Programme, focuses on examining the advancements achieved in women’s rights and related concerns during the last 10 years. The survey found that of the seven biases examined, “biassed gender social norms are prevalent worldwide: almost 90% of people have at least one bias” in both men and women.

The study found that preconceptions, cultural bias, and social constraints that limit women’s empowerment are still “deeply embedded” in society. According to the paper, these biases “are prevalent among men and women, suggesting that these biases are deeply ingrained and influence both men and women to similar degrees.”

The World Values Survey (WVS) used data from 80 countries and territories that represented at least 85% of the world’s population between 2010 and 2014 and 2017 and 2022 to create its index, which revealed “no improvement in biases against women in a decade despite powerful global and local campaigns for women’s rights.”

More than 40% of people reportedly believe that men make “better” business executives than women, according to a report, while 69% of the world’s population thinks that men make “better” political leaders than women. The report also said that only 27% of people think that women’s equality with men is necessary for a democracy and that 25% think that a man beating his wife is acceptable.

While Pedro Conceicao, chief of the UNDP’s Human Development Report Office, said that social norms that restrict women’s rights are harmful to society as a whole and impede the advancement of human development, around 28% of people hold this belief. A crisis in human development is occurring as societal conventions around gender make little progress.