New gender gap index shows men most disadvantaged

[Imnobody4]

The backlash continues, I'm starting to get really scared now.

<a class="break-all" href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-heres-what-happens-when-the-gender-gap-index-is-adjusted-for-bias#click=t.co/rvRvZNbSl2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-heres-what-happens-when-the-gender-gap-index-is-adjusted-for-bias#click=t.co/rvRvZNbSl2
Entitled “A Simplified Approach to Measuring National Gender Inequality,” authors Gijsbert Stoet from the U.K.’s University of Essex, and David C. Geary from the University of Missouri, contend that the GGGI is unreliable, because it is “biased to highlight women’s issues.” They argue that the GGGI does not measure men’s areas of disadvantage, such as compulsory military service, harsher punishments for the same crime, and workplace deaths — 95 per cent male.

By definition, they say, the GGGI “excludes the possibility that men can be less well off than women – this is because the GGGI focuses on women’s advancement.” As well, they contend that the GGGI uses indicators that are only relevant to elite women, and that the GGGI includes indicators more reflective of choice than of discrimination.

The researchers propose a truly gender-neutral set of metrics for calculating equality scores, named the Basic Index of Gender Inequality (BIGI). BIGI focuses on three factors: educational opportunities (literacy, years of primary and secondary education), healthy life expectancy (years expected to live in good health), and overall life satisfaction which, taken together, are the “minimum ingredients of a good life.”
Stoet and Geary calculated BIGI scores over five years (2012 through 2016) for 134 nations, representing 6.8 billion people. They relied on GGGI reports published by the World Economic Forum and the Gallup World Poll for data. To their surprise, they found that using the BIGI as a yardstick, men are on average disadvantaged in 91 countries, while women are disadvantaged in 43 countries, most of them economically under-developed. Sometimes the deviations from parity are quite small or even negligible, as for example in the case of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Turkey, China and Switzerland.

The problem with attempting to measure a gender gap while disregarding gender specific inequalities (cost of reproduction, disparity in available rights etc) is that the resulting data becomes meaningless. The reason why there is inequality between the sexes is because the sexes are fundamentally different. When was the last time a man died trying to reproduce?

Quite frankly broad gender inequality measures are always unuseful because of this. A better approach is to look at specific issues separately (for example pay for a certain role rather than pay across an industry) then use that data to identify where problems arise rather than relying on data that is so broad that it is meaningless.

@Racecardriver, I think you're right. However similar data has been used relatively uncontested in the media. I think if all this data does is prove your point Racecar then I think it will have done some good.

I agree margurita

I think thatcher had no choice after such an act of aggression and neither did chamberlain

womb

Exactly,, its not as straightforward as women start more wars when you look at why wars are started and how

Yes, no way am I a fan of Margaret Thatcher and we can dispute whether or not she had any choice. However the initial act of aggression came from General Galtieri.

@Rufusthebewilderedreindeer

Hillary Clinton was responsible for convincing Obama to effect regime change in Libya, and look how that panned out.

www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/sep/08/hillary-clinton-says-libya-we-did-not-lose-single-/

It was Victoria Nuland who was instrumental in arranging the coup in Ukraine which has led to chaos there.

consortiumnews.com/2015/07/13/the-mess-that-nuland-made/

How many people died as a result of the actions of Elizabeth 1 and Victoria?

My point still stands andy

How many people died as a result of every war women have ever started compared to every war men have started

The original question I became interested in was 'did men tend to start wars'

Clinton didnt start a war

And i think my interest has caused a massive derail for which I apologise to imnobody

Yeah, you can dance about this all you like, people. But the facts are clear. Males are disadvantaged in almost every significant area of life:
School, uni, health, suicide, workplace deaths, violence, etc, etc.
Oh, and there's no gender (sorry, I mean sex) gap. It's a choice thing.

Males are disadvantaged in almost every significant area of life

They really ought to sort that out

@Aquilla I wouldn't go that far. I think there are seperate and distinct advantages and impediments to whatever sex you are, and to muddy the waters some of those follow from one another.

I think the only thing this highlights is that unjust societies don't just affect women. In making things fairer for women you are also making it fairer for men. Win-win all round (apart from if you are one of the beneficiaries of injustice).

andyoldlabour wrote - "Hillary Clinton was responsible for convincing Obama to effect regime change in Libya, and look how that panned out."

This seems to be an example of men claiming "she made him do it".

whatsthecomingoverthehill wrote - "In making things fairer for women you are also making it fairer for men."

That is sometimes true, sometimes not true.

In any case, making things fairer between women and men should never depend upon making things fairer between some men and some other men.

This is bollocks, for starters they did not pick "gender neutral" measures. They picked 3 measures where a large existing body of research shows females have an "advantage":

BIGI focuses on three factors: educational opportunities (literacy, years of primary and secondary education) Females tend to perform better in education than males, not known if this is biological or socialization to work harder and follow rules. But their educational performance does not translate into better life opportunities so it's a moot point (unless the researchers think stickers/exam grades are a goal in and of themselves)

healthy life expectancy (years expected to live in good health) It's well known females live longer and are healthier than males, and this is at least partly biological. But also behavioural as men take more risks and are more violent. So men are kind of disadvantaging themselves here
www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-life-expectancy-lo/

and overall life satisfaction which, taken together, are the “minimum ingredients of a good life.” A global survey in 2003 found women were on average happier than men but noone knows why
www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/880250/a-global-survey-shows-women-are-more-satisfied-with-their-lives-than-men-are/amp/

To do a genuinely gender neutral survey researchers would have to pick measures that they had no reason to think were gender biased. And they haven't.

Don't know who reviewed the research but they did a bad job (unless it's been heavily misreported in OPs article, which is entirely possible).

Women are not happier than men. the way that women rate and report happiness differs from the way men do.

''One common yet counterintuitive finding in the life satisfaction literature is that women on average report higher life satisfaction than men, even though they’re worse off in many measurable ways. This finding raises the question: are women actually happier than men, or are they just reporting that they’re happier?.''

''Once they’re using the same response scale, women aren’t happier than men.
Once men’s and women’s self-reports are on the same scale, we can compare them directly. I find that the previous gap is reversed by about 150% – that is, women are actually less happy than men on average, and the true gap is about -0.015.''

blogs.worldbank.org/impactevaluations/are-women-really-happier-men-around-world-guest-post-mallory-montgomery

@QuentinWinters bollocks it may well be (I don't know as I haven't done a deep dive into their data), but it highlights how any of these "who has it worse" measurements are massively influenced by the biases of whomever is conducting the analysis.

Like for example if this had been a study that reinforced you're own belief that women have it worse, you wouldn't have felt quite so motivated to put it under the microscope.

bollocks it may well be (I don't know as I haven't done a deep dive into their data), but it highlights how any of these "who has it worse" measurements are massively influenced by the biases of whomever is conducting the analysis. Like for example if this had been a study that reinforced you're own belief that women have it worse, you wouldn't have felt quite so motivated to put it under the microscope.

To be fair, any study that says that Saudi Arabia is one of the most equal countries by gender is clearly ripe for questioning.

Like for example if this had been a study that reinforced you're own belief that women have it worse, you wouldn't have felt quite so motivated to put it under the microscope.
I would if it was as flawed as this. Scientist you see. But don't let that affect your preconceptions

bigi.genderequality.info

I think the point is that places like Saudi Arabia are pretty bleak overall whatever sex you are. A lot of these gender based inequalities cancel each other out. Things can be terrible for women and men can still have it marginally worse. These points are not mutually exclusive...

In any case, making things fairer between women and men should never depend upon making things fairer between some men and some other men.

That's precisely my point. In addressing the unfairness between men and women in a society you usually inadvertently make it fairer between classes of men too.

I know a lot of you want to minimise or render invisible the difficulties men face, but I think we’re only going to make progress if we shine a light on the problems both sexes face. Please keep a sense of proportion, this isn’t saying women don’t face problems nor that they shouldn’t be looked at and solutions to them found.

No, not interested in you telling women what to think and do. This is a feminist forum, the discussions will centre women and their issues. This is entirely reasonable and appropriate.

a lot of you want to minimise or render invisible the difficulties men face

No, we don't. We want to talk about the problems women face. Mostly without men intruding and telling us not to. HTH.

I’m not telling anyone what to think, just expressing a view. However if in your world someone expressing a view = being told what to think then I can see why you have such a problem. I hope life gets better for you, and one day you can manage to express a generosity of spirit that encompasses all people.