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In the last three years, women in Afghanistan have been prohibited from jobs, universities, park and gyms. Almost 20 US states illegal or more difficult to ensure. Mortal protests have shaken Iran after a young woman arrested by “incorrect” The clothes died in custody.
The Americans have re -elected a president who campaigned against a female rival he called “delayed“,” Mentally disabled “and a” doll. “
Then there is Andrew Tate, the Misogine influential and Trump champion Who thinks “Everything on the planet was built on a woman obeying her man in the family.”
He arrived in the United States from Romania last month after Washington officials pressed Bucharest to Lift the restrictions on your trip. He and his brother had been arrested in Romania since 2022 in charges including sexual exploitation and human trafficking, which they deny.
In this context, any indication of progress in female equality is welcome. And as is the case, things are looking at. Slightly.
In recent years, a growing part of people around the world has said that they believe that the impulse for women’s rights has gone far enough.
But that proportion fell from 53 percent last year to 48 percent, 30 countries study for the global Institute For female leadership in King’s College London and the Ipsos voting firm were shown this week.
Similarly, the proportion of people who think that equality efforts have gone so far that men are now suffering discrimination that has fallen, just like the proportion that a man who stays at home to take care of his children is less a man.
These decreases are welcome but small. And the study still suggests that almost every second adult in countries around the world thinks that a job on female equality is done, which obviously is not.
Working women still win 20 percent less that men worldwide and until last month, only 27 percent of everything National Parliamentarians They were women.
Even in Rich OECD countries, it will take more than 46 years to close the gender salary gap at current progress rates, PWC data It is shown this month. And the gap has actually been expanded in financial services rooms in Europe, where Hey He says that directors were paid at least $ 100,000 more than their female counterparts in 2023.
There is something else about the research of the University of the King. If you fall into the data, it shows that the improvement in attitudes on female equality is far from being uniform. Throughout the G7, progress has spoken in Italy, the United Kingdom and other Nations of Western Europe. But opinions in the United States and Canada have barely moved and things have mysteriously backwards in Japan, where the proportion of people who think that female equality efforts lead to discrimination against men has increased significantly.
It is not entirely clear why. Perhaps the opinions in France were galvanized by the horrible case of Dominique Pelicot, who repeatedly drugged his wife and invited dozens of strangers to rape her while she was unconscious. Perhaps Trump’s electoral victory affected opinions in the United States. But one thing is clear: the abyss between young men and women is still alarming.
Among those under 30 in the so -called Z generation, a surprising 57 percent of men think that feminism has gone so far that men are now suffering discrimination, compared to 36 percent of women.
And 28 percent of young men think that a man who stays at home to take care of children is less a man, compared to 19 percent of women. Half of women in this generation define themselves as feminist compared to approximately one third of men.
This is in line with extension political division That has opened among increasingly conservative men of 20 and so many years and young women increasingly progressive. In fact, it is believed that the Metao movement was a great driver of the gap.
The question is how to close it. I agree with feminist thinkers who want further recognition From the many problems children and men face, from low educational performance to discouraged rates of the lack of housing, suicide and loneliness.
Ultimately, gender equality cannot be seen as a zero sum game that women can only win at the expense of men.
This idea is fuel for rockets for people like Tate. It also threatens to unravel the progress that has taken so many decades to achieve. Unfortunately, it seems more entrenched today than ever.