The Damned Olde Man

Posted By TDOM on November 2, 2009

Answer: In a novel by George Orwell and in the Global Gender Gap Report, 2009

I have just finished reading what is perhaps the single most one-sided, biased, and sexist document that I have ever read in my life. It is from the Geneva based World Economic Forum and is called the Global Gender Gap Report, 2009. Its authors, Richard Hausmann (Harvard University), Laura D. Tyson (University of California, Berkeley), and Saadia Zahidi (World Economic Forum) make no apologies and proudly state that they have chosen “a “one-sided” scale that measures how close women are to reaching parity with men but does not reward or penalize countries for having a gender gap in the other direction” (p. 6). They even acknowledge that they could have taken a fairer, more neutral approach by using “a negative-positive scale capturing the size and direction of the gender gap” (p. 4, 6). This approach would have “(penalized) either men’s advantage over women or women’s advantage over men and (give) the highest points to absolute equality” (p.6). Unfortunately, they chose not to use this fairer and unbiased approach.

In order to use this one-sided approach, the authors simply defined “gender gap” as any area where men show an advantage when compared to women. Any area where equality exists or where women show an advantage when compared to men is defined as equality. Yes, you read that right. Any area where women show an advantage compared to men is defined as “equality.” George Orwell would be proud.

To do this, they used a scale of 0 to 1 to rate “equality” in each of several different areas. 0 is the score assigned to total inequality (where men show an advantage) and 1 is “equality.” The one-sided approach dictates that any area where women show an advantage is scored as 1 (equality). The gender gap is the average of each of these scores.

The United States ranks 31st with a score of 0.717. However, in educational attainment, the US achieved a score of 1, perfect equality. Or is it? You see, in 3 of the 4 items used to measure educational attainment, women show an advantage over men (using the figures shown in the report) and the 4th item is equal. That’s right, women have the advantage, but the report claims absolute equality.

To demonstrate how absurd this is, it would be possible to use the very same data in the report to “prove” that an anti-male gender gap actually exists or that there is no gender gap in every country in the world. All one would need to do would be to take the same one-sided approach, but in the opposite direction. If we define gender gap as any area where the female has the advantage over the male and assign a score of 0 and define equality as any area where equality actually exists or where men show advantage over women, there would not be a single country in the world where men and women are not shown to be equal or to have a gender gap that favors women. This analysis would be equally as valid as the one used by the authors of this report to demonstrate that there is not a single country that has achieved equality for women. In other words, they would both be total rubbish.

Let’s take this one step further. Imagine a country that is totally dominated by women. One where men have no rights. Men are considered to be the property of women, are slaves, are not permitted to work or hold public office, and receive no health care or education. According to these authors, this country would receive a score of 1 which indicates total equality. That’s right, such a country would fit the authors’ definition of a perfect world.

The unfortunate part of this is that this report is intended to be used to guide policy-making decisions in countries around the world. Policy-makers won’t read the details. They will flip to the conclusion and base their decisions on the statements that show a disadvantage to women in every country across the globe and that men are not at a disadvantage in any of the items contained in the report. This will inevitably result in anti-male discriminatory policy being adopted even in areas where women already have the advantage.

-TDOM

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Categories: Education, Men's Issues, Politics
Tags: Berkeley, Discrimination, Education, Geneva, George Orwell, Global Gender Gap Report, Harvard University, Health care, Politics, Sexism, United States, University of California, University of California Berkeley, World Economic Forum