UN study reveals that about 90% of men and women are prejudicial to women

Ahead of International Women's Day 2020, a global UN report reported that nearly 90 per cent of males and females harbour some sort of bias towards females. The findings are part of the Gender Social Norms Index (GSNI) released by the United Nations Development Program which measures how gender equality affects social beliefs.

People's gender biases have been found to have an effect on women's rights and equality. About half of the world's population believe it's people who make better leaders, according to GSNI. Approximately 40% of people agree that men are making better business leaders. The overall number of female heads of government is in fact smaller than it was five years ago, down to 10 in 2014 from 15 as per the survey. And, about 50% of men felt they were more entitled to work than women. Half of the men and women around the world also felt that men were making better political leaders.

The survey revealed there were no gender-equal countries in the world. Ironically, 28% of men and women believe that men are right to beat their wives."Gender disparities are a persistent form of inequality in every country," UNDP reported in an accompanying report Tackling Social Standards. No nation in the world-rich or poor-has achieved equality between the sexes despite tremendous progress in some places.

"In recent decades, we have come a long way to ensure that women have the same access to basic necessities of life as men. We have achieved equality in primary school enrollment and since 1990 we have decreased maternal mortality by 45 per cent," added Pedro Conceicao, head of the Office for Human Development Monitoring at UNDP.

In the end, Conceicao added "However gender gaps in other areas are still all too clear, particularly those that question power dynamics and are most effective in actually achieving true equality. Today, the battle for gender equality is a story of discrimination and racism".