According to a new Pew Research survey of 22 nations, there is a pronounced gap between a belief in the equality of the sexes and how that translates into reality in both developing and wealthy countries. People around the world say they firmly support equal rights for men and women, but many still believe men should get preference in employment, higher education and the right to work outside the home. I’m sure you’ve heard someone say, “I’m all for equality, but …”
In nations where equal rights are legally mandated, women are nonetheless stymied by a lack of real progress. “Women in the United States and Europe are shouldering major responsibilities at home and at work simultaneously, and this makes for stress and a low quality of life,” said Professor Herminia Ibarra, who teaches organizational behavior at Insead, a business school in France.
The United States and Germany reported a large gap between the sexes on whether their nations have achieved equality. Of those who said they believe in equal rights, many more American and German men also believe their respective countries have made the right amount of changes for women, while many more women think more action is required.
Equal-rights supporters in China, India, Indonesia and Jordan think their countries have reached that goal. Nigeria was the only surveyed country where more than half (54 percent) said they oppose equality. Maybe Nigerians are just really honest! I think some countries have just absorbed the superficial idea that “equality” is good and one should support it. But the devil is in the details. It’s much easier to get folks to embrace the neutral-sounding and amorphous “equality” than the ideas it implies.
Male respondents in Britain and Japan were more likely than women to say they support equal rights. Interestingly, in Japan, 47 percent of respondents said women are better off than men, or that they are the same, but at least one-third said a university education is more important for a boy than a girl. A majority in several countries said men should have more right to jobs than women. In ten of the 22 countries surveyed, more than half of respondents said that when jobs are scarce, they should go to men. “If we think that it’s a growable pie, equality is fine,” Professor Ibarra commented. “If we think it’s a limited pie, it’s not.” That belief was most prevalent in India, Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia and China.
“We’re entering the next phase in many of these countries,” said Professor Jacqui True, an expert in gender relations and senior lecturer at the University of Auckland. “We’re going to see much more frustration with gender inequality among both women and men before we get institutional change in developing countries.” She said it often takes two generations before reality catches up with changes in attitudes.
This is really interesting. I’ve often noticed this gap between belief and practice here in America. I have male and female friends who have trouble seeing that women are still not equal here.
I know I have privileges that women in other parts of the world can’t even imagine, and I am grateful for them, but there is definitely still that lingering idea that women here (and everywhere?)are somehow less suited or deseriving of careers and more “naturally” (ugh) suited to child-bearing and raising. That separate sphere stuff thrown around by all those white men (and many women) is still part of our cultural history and present.
Completely agree with Casey. I had a very discouraging conversation recently with a man my age who is brilliant and who I absolutely love but he insisted that women are completely empowered in Western society and that we’re treated as completely equal to men.
Some of it was that he—like most people—did not like being confronted with his own privilege. But some of it was clearly due to a huge gap in perception on his part, and I’m not at all surprised he’s in the majority.
@Becky – Agreed, I’ve seen that sort of thing too. What I wonder is, how long ago do these people think we reached complete equality? It cannot possibly be any earlier than like 1980. So, how many people now are adults who were growing up and having formative experiences before that point? And would act according to their formative experiences in their present-day lives? And then how is it exactly that people think we’re 100% equal all the time?
@baraqiel: I think that’s a big part of it but I also think that the subtle stuff is lost on men. Particularly issues like rape culture or sexual harassment (particularly street harassment). They have no personal experience of it, so they simply aren’t aware of it. And as I mentioned in the other thread, the majority of men still don’t see reproductive issues as their ultimate responsibility, so all the problems/inequalities women face in terms of reproductive rights, safe access to contraception, etc. are not a reality for them.
This is completely unsurprising to me. In history class in high school, I never had a class that made it past WWII, and then in the last week the teacher is all “And then there was the civil rights movementandVietnam–thatwasprettybad–butalsowomen’srightsandthenReaganandnowit’stoday.” So you walk out thinking okay, if the Women’s Rights movement was sometime in the 70′s it must be over and it must be over because it worked. That coupled with the constant “You can do Anything! Study hard and stay in school and the SKY is the limit!” messaging that is at least superficially directed at girls as well as boys, and I didn’t even realize that women were disadvantaged until I got into the Real World and was discriminated against, harassed, patronized and overlooked myself. I know a huge number of women that didn’t take feminism seriously until they got their first job and were smacked in the face with sexual harassment, unequal pay, unequal division of labor at home, etc.
Men rarely if ever get smacked in the face with what it really means to be a woman in the world, so I’m not surprised that they stay in the “Well we had a Women’s Rights Movement, what else do you want?” mentality.
@Becky – Yes, I agree. It’s like, everything you think is a problem either has already been fixed or isn’t actually a problem.
This is no different than those polls that ask white people and people of color whether the latter are equal in society and have caught up economically with whites. Surprise, surprise, the privileged majority thinks all is wonderful in this best of all possible worlds. It would be wise for the majority to shut up and listen to the minority before forming their opinions.
But those with privilege don’t give it up without a very hard fight. This is a change that’s just over a generation old (if a generation is 30 years). In historical terms, we’ve just started the conversation.
It’s especially sad to see the Stockholm Syndrome stuff going on with western women. We’ll never convince everyone, but I wish we could figure out a good way to reach some of the women who are stuck in their self-hating mindsets.
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Prof. Ibarra’s comment about growable pie vs. limited pie really resonated with me, and not just because pie is inherently awesome. For me, that comparison sums up the whole gender equality problem. “Sure, have some equality, but not too much! I still want that big slice over there.” Gee, thanks a lot for the leftover crumbs.
@Tyvanehtnioj
That is exactly the reason I became a history teacher! Too long have students been slammed over the head with how great the American revolution was (I got 3 years that covered the period; 5, 8 and 11th grade) yet we didn’t even get to the Kennedy Administration. I had to wait until college until I even heard of the Seneca Falls conference or head about the suffragettes. It’s a major problem with American educational norms that we need a specific “black history month” or “women’s week”, the mentality being, “eh, they get a whole week-month so that’s all we need” instead of universally covering key players and groups throughout historical periods in a balanced way. This cannot be done by getting to the 50′s and then “going back” to spend 10 minutes on Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Sojourner Truth in a completely rushed and out of place methodology. Is it any coincidence the norm for Amercan History classes is to finish their year by covering the Vietnam war for an average of 10 minutes?
Conservatives/Hegemonists/Mysogynists are all for living in the “post-racist/sexist” world because then its an easy way for them to distance themselves from criticism. The new mentality is “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” or “We’re past that so there’s no need to continue looking behind the curtain.” Meanwhile this new Texas driven evangelo-neocon history revolution they are passing is requiring if students learn about any woman it is to learn about the greatness of Phyllis (I’m against the Equal Rights Amendment because men will stop going to work, women will be in front-line combat and we will have unisex bathrooms) Schafley.