Gender Equality

Women have been consistently denied the ability to vote, to hold power, to be educated, and progress through political and corporate ranks has been exceedingly difficult. The United Nations reports that the barriers placed against women are "more intense in areas where more power is involved"₁. Liberals and Socialists consider gender to be a private and personal affair, which should be irrelevant elsewise; whereas Conservative, Fascist and religious bodies have regarded gender (specifically, femininity) to be a natural barrier that need not be overcome and support the active enforcement of many limitations against women. Most religious traditions have subjugated womankind_2,3,4,5,6. Despite the occasional exception, religious institutions have been sternest in refusing to allow progress and in effectively opposing secular moves towards gender equality₇. By comparing international statistics across multiple criteria, we can see which countries and regions are doing the best in removing gender bias and prejudice: European countries tend to do well, and African countries do the worst.

1. The UN Gender Inequality Index
2. The Gender Pay Gap
3. The Perspectives of Political Ideologues
4. Gender Social Norms Index (Gender Biases)
5. The Year From Which Women Stand for Election and Vote, by Country
6. Religion Versus Womankind
7. Regional Comparisons of Gender Inequalities
8. Links

1. The UN Gender Inequality Index

#gender #gender_equality #human_rights #misogyny #women

The UN Human Development Reports include statistics on gender equality which take into account things like maternal mortality, access to political power (seats in parliament) and differences between male and female education rates. Gender inequality is not a necessary part of early human development. Although a separation of roles is almost universal due to different strengths between the genders, this does not have to mean that women are subdued, and, such patriarchalism is not universal in ancient history. Those cultures and peoples who shed, or never developed, the idea that mankind ought to dominate womankind, are better cultures and peoples than those who, even today, cling violently to those mores.

This data goes towards countries scores on the Social and Moral Development Index₉.

2. The Gender Pay Gap ₁₀

The 'Gender Pay Gap' is a serious manifestation of accidental social inequality.

It's not a simple case of male-owned business paying male employees more because they are male, but is often a result of more complicated, subconscious and subtle factors. If you adjust unequal pay between men and women in the same job for experience, education, company size and workplace flexibility (such as the ability to work part-time or on adjusted hours), then, the pay rate is much fairer than it first seems - often up to ten times fairer - that at first glance. In the US at least, in 2015, "the pay gap for all workers is 25.6% before such differences are controlled for, and 2.7% afterwards". For example, if women tend to be less experienced in a particular sector, then, they tend to get paid less. It seems to be fair in individual cases, but, it adds up to a trend that is noticeably unfair. This is because workplace organisation does not take into account the social status of women, who are often encumbered with household and childcare responsibilities that men tend to avoid; this results in women having less experience at work, and getting paid less. Not all sectors are the same:

“[A] study by Ms Goldin and Lawrence Katz [at Harvard] noted that being away from work for 18 months was associated with a 29% drop in earnings for mid-career lawyers and PhDs, and a 41% for MBAs. In effect, much of the gender pay gap can be thought of as the cost of having children. [...] Pharmacists, for whom there is little penalty for working part-time, experience virtually no gender pay gap. [... Studies are showing that] rather than fixating on just the overall ratio earnings between men and women, it would be more interesting to ask who gets which jobs and why.”

The Economist (2015)₁₁

3. The Perspectives of Political Ideologues

“Liberals have traditionally regarded differences between women and men as being of entirely private or personal significance. In public and political life all people are considered as individuals, gender being as irrelevant as ethnicity or social class. [...]

Conservatives have traditionally emphasized the social and political significance of gender divisions, arguing that they imply that the sexual division of labour between women and men is natural and inevitable. Gender is thus one of the factors that gives society its organic and hierarchical character.

Socialists, like liberals, have rarely treated gender as a politically significant category. When gender divisions are significant it is usually because they reflect and are sustained by deeper economic and class inequalities.

Fascists view gender as a fundamental division within humankind. Men naturally monopolize leadership and decision-making, while women are suited to an entirely domestic, supportive and subordinate role.

[...]

Religious fundamentalists usually regard gender as a God-given division, and thus as one that is crucial to social and political organization. Patriarchal structures and the leadership of males therefore tend to be regarded as natural and desirable.”

"Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)₆

4. Gender Social Norms Index (Gender Biases)

#gender #gender_equality #prejudice #women

The Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) looks at gender biases across seven criteria; the % given here is for the total people who are biased across any of those criteria. By subtracting the value from 100%, you can see that those who do well on this index, you are seeing a count of those who do not appear to be biased against women in any of the criteria, and so, doing well on this index is a very positive sign for any country.

The data was included in UN (2022) with full results in Annex table AS6.7.1; their data stems for ranges between 2005 and 2022, depending on the country in question.

5. The Year From Which Women Stand for Election and Vote, by Country

#christianity #gender_equality #human_rights #new_zealand #politics #women

Women now have equal rights in the vast majority of countries across the world. Although academic literature oftens talks of when a country "grants women the right to vote", this enforces a backwards way of thinking. Women always had the right to vote, however, they were frequently denied that right. The opposition to women's ability to vote in equality with man was most consistently and powerfully opposed by the Catholic Church, other Christian organisations, Islamic authorities and some other religious and secular traditionalists.

• New Zealand was the first country to grant women the right to vote in 1893, although women did not have the right to stand until 1919. As New Zealand was the first and therefore the trend-setter, they still deserve the points for the 1893 date.
• Swedish women could vote from 1718, however, it was limited to professional guildswomen.
• "Limited rights" to vote have often included additional and unfair age-restrictions and education-requirements for women which have not been required for men. Points are only scored for the date that these restrictions were lifted.

Sources:

1. United Nations Human Development Report 2005 lists when 185 countries granted women the ability to vote. Data here is amended to show the date from when women had both the right to vote and to stand for election. In some cases where the data is unclear, I use the date of the right to vote rather than have no data.
2. #1. "Sociology" by Anthony Giddens (1997)₁₆ using Lisa Tuttle 'Encyclopedia of Feminism' (1986) p370-1.
3. #2. The Economist (2006 Sep 09) p29 article "The Swedish Model".
4. #3. Female suffrage by country", IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union). 1995. Women in Parliaments 1945-1995: A World Statistical Survey. Geneva and IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union). 2001. Correspondence on year women received the right to vote and to stand for election and year first woman was elected or appointed to parliament. March. Geneva. Retrieved from www.NationMaster.com 2012 Dec 24.
5. #4. http://www.onlinewomeninpolitics.org/suffr_chrono.htm which although this document is inconsistent in places, so was my source of last resort.

6. Religion Versus Womankind

#buddhism #christianity #gender #hinduism #islam #judaism #morals #new_age #paganism #politics #religion #religion_sex #satanism #sexuality #wicca #women

Most religious traditions have subjugated womankind_2,3,4,5,6. The religious restrictions and taboos on womankind have ranged from the openly oppressive and inhumane, to subtle limitations. Women have been barred from leadership, prevented from religious learning and even from secular education, forbidden to hold power, denied fair inheritance and land ownership, denigrated, physically dominated, and sometimes even forbidden to speak₁₇. All in accordance with holy texts, religious laws and guidelines. The Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam have been the worse; but also Hinduism and Buddhism have played roles in the long-term subjugation of women. In Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "The Woman's Bible" (1898)₁₈ she bemoans that "all the religions on the face of the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign her, her emancipation is impossible"₁₉. The much more neutral scholar of comparative religion, Moojan Momen, normally writes positively on nearly all aspects of religion, but when it comes to women, even he is forced into a multiple-page criticism of the historical role of religion₅. Although some of this stems from ancient cultural sources before it happened to be codified in world religions₂₀, organized religion has clung on to patriarchalism long after secular society has liberalized. Feminist groups have frequently been anti-religion simply because it is religion that has presented itself as the most consistent oppressor of womankind. The problems from traditional religions are not just historical: even today, religious organisations and powerful international religious lobbies hold back gender equality across the world₂₁.

There is good news. The most readily accepted cure for both intolerance, religion and superstition is widely shown to be education. The position of women improves as education improves and as traditional religions lose their grip on society. Modern society has come to either ignore their traditional texts (as most Christians do) or to abandon religion (as many Westerners have done). In societies dominated by male thinking, many women are convinced that men should beat them, often in accordance with religious texts: as education improves, fewer believe this₂₂. Also many new religious movements and alternative religions such as Paganism, Wicca, the New Age and even Satanism practice full gender equality. As long as traditional religions continue to decline and secular society and new religions both grow, the situation of women continues to improve.

For more, see:

• "Religion Versus Womankind" by Vexen Crabtree (2007).

7. Regional Comparisons of Gender Inequalities

#gender #gender_equality #human_rights #misogyny #politics #prejudice #women

Of all the continental blocs, according to the country averages for data up to the present (2022), Europe comes in the top two positions across all criteria, whereas Africa sits in the worst two positions across all criteria. There are no other consistent positions.

Full regional results, including conceptual groupings and sub-regions: