God, Guardian, and the Gender Agenda
“Nine out of 10 people are biased against women, says ‘alarming’ UN report.”😨
The Guardian headline conveyed the findings of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2023 Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI).
How can the world be livable if these many people have a bias against women? Or rather, how do women cope if these many people hold prejudiced views about them?
Granted the world is not an entirely pleasant place for many, it has been more unfair to women than men in many instances, for as long as homo sapiens walked the plains and heights of planet Earth.
All the same, how can these many people have a bias against women - 90 out of 100 people including women being biased against women?
So, what if this ‘alarming UN report’ was true?
It means that if I sat in the same room with former Presidents like Barack Obama, Muhammadu Buhari and 7 others, I would be among the 9 individuals who have a bias against women.
This means Mr Obama too would be among the gender-biased 9? Because President Buhari is very much not biased against women and girls.🤭
But before Obama and I are labelled as being biased against women, I’d rather take a keener look at the UN figures.
You had better come with me to know for yourself. You could be among the 9 usual suspects of gender bias among the 10 in every room in the world.
The Guardian and the UNDP Report
“Nine out of 10 people of all genders have a bias against women, found the Gender Social Norms Index, a figure unchanged from data collected more than a decade ago,” The Guardian reported.
The UNDP Report had given the same impression: “The index, covering 85 percent of the global population, reveals that close to 9 out of 10 men and women hold biases against women.”
The Report noted that Gender biases continue to be prevalent in both lower and higher Human Development Index (HDI) countries, making it a pressing global issue that transcends regions, income levels, and cultures.
Measuring the extent of prejudices against women based on their roles in politics, education, economy, and physical integrity, the report switches the narrative to say: “Biased gender social norms are widespread worldwide: almost 90 percent of people have at least one bias”
However, the two statements which are used interchangeably in the report do not mean the same thing. And to portray them as the same may mislead people and governments with genuine concerns for the inequities women suffer globally.
The UNDP would mislead if it does not differentiate holding at least one bias against women from actually holding biases against women.
Let’s see what this really means.
If you play the game of dice, you’ll know that the probability of you having 1 if you throw a fair dice is ⅙.
But the probability of you having at least 1 as the minimum value on the dice is the probability of you having 6 or 5 or 4 or 3 or 2 or 1. Since the probability of having each of these 6 outcomes is ⅙, the probability of having at least 1 is ⅙ + ⅙ + ⅙ + ⅙ + ⅙ + ⅙ = 1. So, the probability of having at least one is 1 or 100 per cent.
But remember that the probability of having “1” is actually ⅙, which is 16.7 per cent.
So, when there are 10 women and men in a room, what are we interested in knowing? Is it how many of them have a level of bias against women or how many of them have at least one bias against women?
Usually what we want to know is how many of them have a bias against women. If that is the question, then the UNDP report actually stated that 18 per cent of people have one bias against women.
So, going by the UNDP data, in a room of 100 people, there is a PROBABILITY that:
18 persons (18 per cent) have 1 bias against women
18 persons (18 per cent) have 2 biases against women
16 persons (16.1 per cent) have 3 biases against women
16 persons (16.1 per cent) have 4 biases against women
14 persons (13.9 per cent) have 5 biases against women
6 persons (5.8 per cent) have 6 biases against women
Only 1 person (0.8 per cent) has all the 7 biases against women
11 persons (11.3 per cent) have zero bias against women
What do you expect if we add the probabilities of each of the 7 possible outcomes of bias? Almost ninety among the hundred persons in the room (88.7 per cent), of course!
However, it does not mean that the 18 persons who have 1 bias are different from the 18 who have 2 biases.
It does not mean that the 16 persons who have 3 biases are not among the same 18 persons who have 2 biases.
It does not mean the 6 persons who have 6 biases against women are totally separate from the 14 who have 5 biases, and so on.
You’ll notice that the more the number of biases against women, the fewer the proportion of people likely to show these prejudices.
What this really shows is that, globally, fewer people have more of these biases.
And, if we want to know the proportion of people who are (fully) biased against women, who fully exhibit UNDP’s 7 markers of discrimination against women, they are just 1 in 100 persons (one per cent).
So, from the UNDP data, it's safe to say at this point that in a room of 10 people, we may not find more than 2 people that have one bias against women.
These same 2 persons could also have 2 biases against women. 1 of these 2 people could have 6 biases against women. In the end, those who have 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 biases against women among the 10 in the room could be just 2 or 3, and not 9 as the report purports.
It would have been helpful if the UNDP report stated clearly that for any of the 7 levels of bias, it did not record up to 2 out of 10 people (or 20 out of 100 people) that actually had a bias.
What it chose to emphasise was an hypothetical scenario that measures the probability of ‘this or this’ but does not measure the probability of ‘this and this’.
So, what are these indicators of bias, and how can we know you and I have any of these biases against women?
UNDP’s 7 Indicators of Bias against women
The Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) measures prejudices against women by examining people's views on women's roles in four key areas: politics, education, economics, and physical safety.
The index covers 85 per cent of the world's population and shows that almost 9 out of 10 people hold biases against women. Nearly half of the world believes that men are better political leaders than women, while two in five believe that men are better business executives.
Going by the above definition of bias, how many biases do you have against women? (See the details of the actual Physical Integrity questions further below).
Going by the above 7 criteria of bias, I think I’m among the 11 persons in a room of 100 people who have zero bias against women.🤝
The UNDP Report also notes that biases in gender social norms are prevalent among both men and women. That is, besides men, women too have some beliefs that are against the full human rights and dignity of the female gender.
In all, 61 per cent of people have at least one bias in the two political indicators (57.3 per cent of women and 65.1 per cent of men). Their answers to these two questions showed bias against women:
Women having the same rights as men is essential for democracy (27 per cent of people showed bias)
Men make better political leaders than women do (49 per cent of people showed bias)
Also, 28 per cent of people are biased in the only educational indicator (24.9 per cent of women and 31.2 per cent of men). Their answer to this question showed bias against women:
University (education) is more important for men than women.
Another 60 per cent of people are biased at least in one of the two economic indicators (54.5 per cent of women and 64.7 per cent of men). Their answer to these questions showed bias against women:
Men should have more rights to a job than women (46 per cent of people showed bias)
Men make better business executives than women (43 per cent of people showed bias)
Yet, another 75 per cent of people are biased at least in one of the two women’s physical integrity indicators (73.4 of women and 76.2 per cent of women). Their answers to these questions showed bias against women:
it is justifiable for a man to beat his wife (25 per cent of people showed bias)
women have a right to choose whether or not to reproduce, including the right to decide whether to carry or terminate an unwanted pregnancy and the right to choose their preferred method of family planning and contraception (58 per cent of people showed bias)
According to the UNDP, “the Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) captures beliefs on gender equality in capabilities and rights. First introduced in the 2019 Human Development Report, it differs from achievement-based objective measures of gender equality, which assess gender gaps in terms of outcomes.
“By focusing on beliefs, biases and prejudices, it provides an in-depth account of the root causes of gender inequality that hinder progress for women and girls.”
Could these beliefs include those about God? Could our religious biases be the root causes of gender social norms that are unfair to women? Could our misguided pieties blind us to prejudices against the girl child?
Let’s see next weekend on the concluding part of God, Guardian, and the Gender Agenda.
Till then, let each reflect on our religious and irreligious beliefs. Do they entrench bias and prejudice against women?
Share your thoughts, suggestions, beliefs and bias against women that you discovered in this Data Dive to newsletter@dataphyte.com