Women’s rights have gone ‘too far’, now men feeling discriminated, says latest survey

More than half of all men (55 per cent) and about 41 per cent of all women across 32 countries believe that the women's rights have gone overboard, according to a survey by Ipsos UK and the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London. The survey collated responses from 22,500 people aged 16-74 across 32 countries, including 500 responses each from India, Indonesia, South Africa and South Korea.

Nearly 52 per cent of Gen Z and 53 per cent of millennials say that society has gone "too far" in promoting women's rights that it is discriminating against men.

In contrast, four in 10 baby boomers (40 per cent) and Gen X (46 per cent) said the same.

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Which all countries were surveyed?

The sample consists of approximately 2,000 individuals in Japan, 1,000 individuals each in Australia, Brazil, Canada, mainland China, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Spain, and the United States, and 500 individuals in each of Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

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The survey report said that the respondents from most countries in Latin America and Asia were "more urban, more educated, and more affluent than the general population".

Is there any silver lining for gender equality?

More than half the people (53 per cent) in all 32 surveyed countries said that gender equality benefits all genders and not just women.

Barely 6 per cent people in all surveyed 32 countries believe that gender inequality does not exist, implying that cumulatively about 94 per cent people globally admit the role of gender inequality in public sphere. About 15 per cent people from India said that gender inequality does not exist (highest) while just 2 per cent surveyed people in Japan said the same.

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Indians were found to be among the most forthcoming when it came to confronting someone who was sexually harassing a woman. Some 26 per cent surveyed Indians said they confronted someone during a related situation in the past year, next to 36 per cent Indonesians.

Some 30 per cent surveyed Indians said that they talked to their employers about examples of gender discrimination at work, next to the people from the United Arab Emirates (33 per cent).

The survey found that compared with the years before the Covid pandemic, there is higher optimism that equality will be achieved in people’s lifetimes (53 per cent in 2023 versus 47 per cent in (2019), half of people think life is better now for young women today than for the previous generation, and a growing proportion (around 4 in 10) describe themselves as a feminist.

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