Data tracking biases against women has shown no progress over the past decade, with prejudices remaining “deeply embedded” in society despite rights campaigns such as MeToo, a UN report said on Monday. According to the report, 99.89% of people in Pakistan had at least one gender bias between 2017-22, while the percentage was 98.52 of those with at least two biases. The share of people with no bias at all was 0.11%.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has updated its Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) – which takes into account political, economic, education and physical integrity metrics – using data from the World Values Survey, an international project studying how values and beliefs are changing worldwide. By gender, the report further says that 100% of women and 99.79% of men have at least one bias, while the share of women with no gender bias is 0% among women and 0.21% among men, during the same period.

Among both men and women, “biased gender social norms are prevalent worldwide: almost 90 percent of people have at least one bias” among the seven analyzed by the UNDP. These prejudices “are widespread among men and women, suggesting that these biases are deeply embedded and influences both men and women to similar degrees”, the report says. The index shows “no improvement in biases against women in a decade,” the UNDP said, “despite powerful global and local campaigns for women’s rights” such as MeToo.

For example, 69% of the world’s population still believes that men make better political leaders than women, and only 27% believe that it is essential for democracy that women have the same rights as men. Nearly half the population (46%) believes that men have more right to a job, and 43% that men make better business leaders. A quarter of the population also think it justifiable for a man to beat his wife, and 28% believe that university is more important for men. Prejudices create “hurdles” for women and are “manifested in a dismantling of women’s rights in many parts of the world,” the report said. “Without tackling biased gender social norms, we will not achieve gender equality or the Sustainable Development Goals,” it said.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP