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.

Your view was what you think others would say. Stick to the facts.

Women cant fix the worlds problems; we cant even get men to stop being violent towards us for 24 hours. You go and work out how to get the men who have the power to step up. Go and engage them.

Non-violent men can’t stop violent men being violent towards them either! Yet somehow it’s all the fault of men as a class and we’re all somehow complicit in our own abuse in a spectacularly hypocritical display of victim blaming.

A Saudi wife in a polygynous marriage to a wealthy husband might find life quite satisfying, while a poor Saudi man with almost no marriage prospects at all may find life quite unsatisfying.

What gobsmackingly stupid 'reasoning'. So a rich woman might be more 'satisfied' than a poor man? What an utterly daft comparison. Compare rich men to rich women, and poor men to poor women, and you'll very likely find the women are worse off. Not to mention that, in every country, the poor outnumer the rich many times over.

QuentinWinters, that was my first thought on seeing this conclusion: did they cherrypick the research questions to come out with the answer they wanted, and who did this.

Unfortunately this idea is now out there, the womanhaters out there will use it, and it will be used to justify every discrimination possible including violence against women and girls.

I think women everywhere really need to look out for their own defence now. And that means having as little to do with strange men as possible. It sounds odd, but lets face it, this is an unacknowledged war. The scale of sex-based violence has never been acknowledged. Women have always been under fire, always been on the front line, and men are not automatically our allies.

Women are victimised as a class AntiSocial. Until that stops, until sex based violence stops, women have to defend themselves and our own. Men are quick enough to criticise us when our defences slip for male violence being our fault. You have had it all your own way for far too long.

Societies can moderate levels of violence by means of social norms and their legal system. The extent to which this happens depends on whether those with power think it matters. Men-as-a-class have more political power in most societies than women-as-a-class - pretty much all of it in some societies.

Men-as-a-class have more political power in most societies than women-as-a-class - pretty much all of it in some societies.

But only a very small percentage, and men are overwhelmingly represented at the very bottom too - probably more than at the top in terms of numbers, but the ones at the top have more influence.

Going back to the above point, happiness and oppression aren't two mutually exclusive things. Women have been self reporting lower levels of happiness for the past few decades despite having made huge steps forward in liberation and equality etc.

A woman who isn't allowed to drive a car might not really care if she's not a feminist and has multiple other women to clean her house/wait on her and a chauffeur to drive her around.

This is why I struggle with the notion of patriarchy, if the world was setup primarily for the benefit of men it seems to be utterly failing them en mass. Holding those men at the bottom of the pile responsible not only for their own predicament but additionally guilty by association for the oppression of women is both victim blamey and not more than a little cruel...

I haven't gone into the methodology of this new equality standard, but it has occured to me that the old standard was exclusively looking for areas where women were disadvantaged, and thusly was ONLY capable of spitting out the conclusion that women are worse off relative to men.

It may well be this new standard is little better and thusly just switches this around, but shouldn't it therefore be the fervant wish of anyone that does want to make positive social change to have an accurate picture of precisely what we are dealing with?

Good to have a reminder that if you ignore all the measurements that won't suit your intended conclusion, then you can make studies "prove" whatever you want.

'Looking for areas where women are disadvantaged'... like by child bearing? Or by being the desired sex, as opposed to the desiring and aggressive one? Kind of universal, those.

This is why I struggle with the notion of patriarchy, if the world was setup primarily for the benefit of men it seems to be utterly failing them en mass.

That's really shoddy reasoning.

It's a bit like a visitor going to pre-civil war US and saying that white people couldn't be the dominant group because plenty of white people were poor.

This is why I struggle with the notion of patriarchy, if the world was setup primarily for the benefit of men it seems to be utterly failing them en mass. Holding those men at the bottom of the pile responsible not only for their own predicament but additionally guilty by association for the oppression of women is both victim blamey and not more than a little cruel...

A good point.

I feel the assumption is sometimes that it's some sort of boys club, but the reality is that you probably have to be very cutthroat to get to the very top, and these guys likely aren't too concerned about the unworthy guys who 'failed'.

Powerful women are often just as bad (maybe worse) if you read all the stories on here about female bosses who sacrificed their family life/motherhood and have an attitude of 'well, I had to do it, so you should to'.

'too' not 'to'

Good to have a reminder that if you ignore all the measurements that won't suit your intended conclusion, then you can make studies "prove" whatever you want.

Agreed.

I think the Indian women bit likely damages their credibility in the eyes of many, even if I do get what they're trying to say.

But as you point out they make a good point that previous studies have only focused on one side of the picture (e.g. women's problems) in order to reach a conclusion.

Men and women are interconnected in many ways throughout our society, if not quite symbiotic, so improving things for either will likely also be a benefit to the other sex. I'm certainly happier when my partner is.

*A good point.

I feel the assumption is sometimes that it's some sort of boys club, but the reality is that you probably have to be very cutthroat to get to the very top, and these guys likely aren't too concerned about the unworthy guys who 'failed*

It isn't a ood point because the fact that only a minority of a certain group hold power does not mean that that group - as a group - is not privileged.

Like I said above, only a minority of whites in antebellum Southern US were rich. Many/most were poor. But nobody would seriously try to deny that whites - as a group - were not dominant and that blacks were oppressed. Similarly, the fact that many men are poor does not negate the fact that men, as a group, hold the greatest power in society.

I'm certainly happier when my partner is.

I'm glad to hear that Domestic Violence is not an issue for you, nor Marital Rape. You seem to then believe that they don't exist at all, or perhaps that women don't suffer from them more than men do.

They do. Both counts. Keep your trolling to the realm of actual reality please.

It isn't a ood point because the fact that only a minority of a certain group hold power does not mean that that group - as a group - is not privileged.

Like I said above, only a minority of whites in antebellum Southern US were rich. Many/most were poor. But nobody would seriously try to deny that whites - as a group - were not dominant and that blacks were oppressed. Similarly, the fact that many men are poor does not negate the fact that men, as a group, hold the greatest power in society.

But this argument only works when you lump men into a homogenous group, hence my issue with class analysis.

Extremely few black people were more privileged than the average white person in the period you reference. However, the average UK woman earns more than the average UK man in this country up until the approximate age of motherhood (which is typically accompanied by a prolonged exit from the workplace with considerable consequences in regard to job progression).

Looking at some of the areas mentioned in the study....for example, I wouldn't have imagined that the oppressed group you mention (POC) would have enjoyed longer lifespans, fewer workplace deaths, mortality, etc, than their oppressors, as is the case with women.

I'm glad to hear that Domestic Violence is not an issue for you, nor Marital Rape. You seem to then believe that they don't exist at all, or perhaps that women don't suffer from them more than men do.

Are you confusing me with another poster? I don't believe that.

I'm just saying that within a happily married couple the happiness of either doesn't exist in a vacuum. Most men care about their loved ones' mental wellbeing.

Ok. I'm not feeling great tonight. But still not sure why I feel just a tad patronized and by some of these posts.

Seriously. Yes some men may be disadvantaged by society. Feel free to discuss elsewhere without trying to highjack somewhere where disadvantages so inherent to being a woman are discussed. It is not a level playing field.

Am in a lot of pain and am normally tolerant. Might also have misread things. If not dfod.

Its impossible to die in the workplace if you are prevented from working, by, for example, being sold as a sex slave as a child, then forced to repeatedly bear children.

But this argument only works when you lump men into a homogenous group, hence my issue with class analysis.

I'm not saying that men are a 'homogeneous group'. I said that some men are much poorer than others. What I'm saying is that the existence of poor men doesn't negate the fact that elite men (almost never women) throughout history, have had the power to control and shape society to suit themselves. If elite men don't care about poor men, well, that's hardly women's fault, is it?

Most men care about their loved ones' mental wellbeing

That'll be why there's so many single mothers around, because the men they slept with really turned out to care about them and would take responsibility for the new lives that they'd help to produce?

What women know from bitter experience is that you're ideas are the product of male privilege. Rates of rape are high, sexual harassment is almost a universal experience for women and girls. You are talking rot when you try to tell women that we should push for more privilege for men because then they'll make us happier. The "Stand by your man" approach. It's been tried, for millennia: all that happens is that women end up as vulnerable economic slaves.

your, not you're

'The problem' is not that women don't care or women don't do enough.

Not one man on this thread is actually engaging with any of the points made; there's the root of problem.