90% of people have at least one prejudice against women, says a UN report

A report released by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has stated that nearly 90% of people, both men and women, still hold at least one bias against women or at least 9 out of 10 men and women hold at least one fundamental bias against women.

The report uses data from the international research programme World Values Survey (WVS) collected from 2010-2014 and 2017-2022 in 80 countries accounting for around 85% of the world’s population. It should also be noted in 38 countries, the bias has only decreased from 86.9% to just 84.6%

According to UNDP’s Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI), around half the world’s population believes that men can be better political leaders than women. More than 40% also believe that men make better business executives as compared to women. The report also said that only 27% of people believed that women having the same rights as men is crucial for a democracy.

The most shocking stat of this report is that around 25% of people believe that a man beating his wife can be justifiable. The report states that the index has shown “no improvement in biases against women in a decade despite powerful global and local campaigns for women’s rights,”

Pedro Conceicao, Head of the UNDP’s Human Development Report Office said, “Social norms that impair women’s rights are detrimental to society more broadly, dampening the expansion of human development. Lack of progress on gender social norms is unfolding against a human development crisis.”