Backlash against women’s equality rolls back progress worldwide

As pundits scratch their heads wondering why Elizabeth Warren’s campaign went south, a new study indicates a clear reason: Almost half of people around the world believe that men make better political leaders.

Part of a startling larger look at gender equality, the United Nations Development Programme’s first Human Development Report’s Gender Inequality Index found that progress is slowing or moving backward in four areas of women’s empowerment: politics, economics, education, violence, and reproductive rights. The report authors found that “despite decades of progress in advancing women’s rights, bias against gender equality is increasing in some countries, with evidence of a backlash in attitudes among both men and women.”

Nearly 90 percent of people in 75 countries demonstrated at least one bias against equality—with 91 percent of men and 86 percent of women showing bias in one of the four areas studied. More than 40 percent of people surveyed believe that men make better business executives and about a third of people agreed it’s okay for a man to beat his partner.

“We all know we live in a male-dominated world, but with this report we are able to put some numbers behind these biases,” Pedro Conceição, director of the UNDP’s human development report office, told The Guardian. “And the numbers, I consider them shocking.”

“While in many countries these biases are shrinking, in many others the biases are actually sliding back,” Conceição said. “If you take the overall average of the information we have, we show that on average we are sliding back—that biases, instead of shrinking, are growing back.”

If the move toward equality progresses at its current rate, it would take 257 years to close the economic opportunity gap between men and women. Also, the number of female heads of state has dropped to 10 (in 193 countries) from 15 in 2014.

This year marks the 25^th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration—developed at the Fourth World Conference on Women at which 189 countries agreed to take action in 12 key equality areas: poverty, education and training, health, violence, armed conflict, economy, power and decision-making, institutional mechanisms, human rights, media, environment, and the girl child. The UN called on governments to work to close the gender gap in these areas by 2030.

UNDP’s report makes clear that this isn’t going to happen with the way things are going, declaring, “The world is not on track to achieve gender equality by 2030.” The authors argue that “progress towards gender equality is confronting moving targets and inequality traps, with disadvantaged groups catching up with basic achievements, but trailing in more empowering enhanced achievements. One example: In the 50 countries where adult women are more educated than men, they still receive on average 39 percent less income than men—despite devoting more time to work.”

“UNDP is very conscious of the backlash against women’s rights,” Raquel Lagunas, acting director of UNDP’s gender team, told The Guardian. “We are aware and we are concerned, so we think the report … is an answer to push back the pushback. We cannot pick and choose, [saying]: ‘These human rights are for women, and these ones are not.’”