The magazine Foreign Policy recently had a “sex” issue out. This issue is particularly famous for Mona Eltahaway’s jeremiad against Arab male culture, and their attitudes toward women. Over at bloggingheads.tv Charli Carpenter expresses some concern that the issue seemed so singularly focused on Arabs, as if women’s rights is a problem with particular salience for Arab Muslims. As it is, she admits that as a matter of truth it may be so, but still has qualms about essentialization.
Now, I like to think in terms of distributions, and don’t find essentialization particularly useful on a fundamental level. But, my personal observation is that the term ‘essentialization’ tends to be used when there are phenomena brought to light which make people uncomfortable. For example, I rarely hear essentialization being nearly a great a problem when talking about Republicans or Western Christian conservatives.
But it does make to wonder: how bad are Arab countries when it comes to women’s rights? Let’s look at the World Values Survey. There are two questions in the survey which have a lot of normative baggage:
– If jobs are scarce: men should have more right to a job than women
– It is an essential characteristic of democracy that women have the same rights as men
As a matter of pedantic accuracy obviously it is not an essential characteristic of democracy that women and men have the same rights. Ancient Athens and America before the 1920s are generally considered democracies. But, the question is a rough gauge of attitudes toward male and female legal equality. I relabeled these questions as “economic” and “legal” equality. They are given as percentages, so I converted the categories into numbers, and then took the weighted average. These two indices measure the two dimensions of equality, with higher values favoring more equality. Below I generated a scatterplot showing the relationship between the two (naturally positively correlated). I’ve also attached table data after the figure.
| Democracy: Women have the same rights as men. | ||||||||||
| Country | Not essential | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Essential |
| Malaysia | 4% | 2% | 2% | 5% | 18% | 14% | 14% | 15% | 12% | 15% |
| Thailand | 2% | 1% | 2% | 2% | 11% | 10% | 14% | 17% | 18% | 22% |
| Iraq | 10% | 5% | 6% | 7% | 15% | 7% | 8% | 9% | 7% | 27% |
| Rwanda | 2% | 2% | 3% | 4% | 9% | 8% | 9% | 14% | 19% | 32% |
| Iran | 5% | 2% | 3% | 3% | 9% | 7% | 8% | 13% | 14% | 35% |
| South Africa | 2% | 3% | 2% | 3% | 7% | 7% | 9% | 12% | 15% | 41% |
| South Korea | 4% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 9% | 6% | 7% | 13% | 15% | 42% |
| Japan | 2% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 4% | 12% | 8% | 15% | 13% | 43% |
| Zambia | 3% | 3% | 4% | 4% | 10% | 9% | 5% | 7% | 11% | 45% |
| Morocco | 8% | 2% | 4% | 4% | 10% | 2% | 5% | 10% | 10% | 45% |
| Indonesia | 6% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 7% | 4% | 8% | 12% | 11% | 47% |
| Ukraine | 1% | 1% | 1% | 3% | 6% | 7% | 8% | 11% | 14% | 48% |
| Ghana | 3% | 2% | 2% | 1% | 4% | 4% | 4% | 12% | 19% | 49% |
| France | 1% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 6% | 3% | 4% | 15% | 17% | 50% |
| Moldova | 1% | 0% | 1% | 1% | 6% | 4% | 7% | 10% | 20% | 51% |
| Jordan | 11% | 3% | 3% | 4% | 6% | 5% | 4% | 9% | 6% | 51% |
| Egypt | 7% | 1% | 3% | 4% | 9% | 6% | 7% | 8% | 4% | 51% |
| Mali | 8% | 2% | 1% | 3% | 9% | 4% | 8% | 6% | 9% | 51% |
| Ethiopia | 1% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 1% | 9% | 11% | 25% | 52% |
| Chile | 2% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 8% | 6% | 6% | 10% | 10% | 55% |
| Serbia | 3% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 4% | 4% | 5% | 11% | 13% | 56% |
| Brazil | 4% | 1% | 2% | 2% | 6% | 3% | 5% | 9% | 13% | 56% |
| Turkey | 1% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 4% | 6% | 8% | 13% | 9% | 57% |
| United States | 2% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 11% | 4% | 5% | 8% | 11% | 57% |
| Bulgaria | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 4% | 3% | 3% | 9% | 16% | 57% |
| Mexico | 8% | 2% | 2% | 1% | 5% | 3% | 3% | 9% | 11% | 57% |
| Burkina Faso | 4% | 1% | 2% | 2% | 7% | 4% | 5% | 6% | 9% | 59% |
| Taiwan | 0% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 3% | 5% | 6% | 11% | 15% | 59% |
| Netherlands | 1% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 2% | 3% | 5% | 12% | 17% | 60% |
| Uruguay | 2% | 0% | 1% | 1% | 8% | 5% | 6% | 9% | 9% | 60% |
| China | 2% | 1% | 1% | 0% | 2% | 3% | 3% | 8% | 19% | 61% |
| Peru | 2% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 4% | 3% | 4% | 10% | 14% | 61% |
| Great Britain | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 3% | 3% | 3% | 12% | 14% | 62% |
| Slovenia | 2% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 4% | 2% | 4% | 11% | 12% | 63% |
| Spain | 1% | 0% | 1% | 1% | 5% | 4% | 7% | 7% | 11% | 63% |
| Finland | 0% | 0% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 2% | 4% | 10% | 17% | 64% |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 3% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 4% | 3% | 3% | 8% | 12% | 65% |
| Poland | 1% | 0% | 1% | 2% | 4% | 2% | 4% | 10% | 11% | 65% |
| Canada | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 4% | 2% | 3% | 11% | 12% | 66% |
| Viet Nam | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 3% | 4% | 10% | 14% | 68% |
| Cyprus | 2% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 5% | 3% | 3% | 7% | 8% | 69% |
| Georgia | 1% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 3% | 2% | 5% | 9% | 9% | 70% |
| Norway | 1% | 0% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 1% | 2% | 9% | 15% | 70% |
| Australia | 2% | 1% | 0% | 0% | 4% | 1% | 4% | 7% | 10% | 72% |
| Romania | 0% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 3% | 1% | 3% | 7% | 11% | 74% |
| Russian Federation | 2% | 0% | 1% | 1% | 3% | 2% | 3% | 6% | 9% | 74% |
| Germany | 1% | 1% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 4% | 4% | 6% | 7% | 74% |
| Switzerland | 2% | 0% | 1% | 0% | 2% | 1% | 2% | 4% | 10% | 78% |
| Argentina | 1% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 3% | 1% | 3% | 5% | 6% | 80% |
| Sweden | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 16% | 84% |
| Andorra | 2% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 2% | 1% | 1% | 3% | 5% | 88% |
| Men more right to jobs | |||
| Country | Agree | Neither | Disagree |
| Egypt | 89% | 7% | 4% |
| Jordan | 88% | 4% | 8% |
| Iraq | 84% | 0% | 16% |
| Iran | 69% | 14% | 17% |
| Mali | 62% | 15% | 23% |
| Indonesia | 55% | 8% | 36% |
| Ghana | 54% | 9% | 37% |
| Turkey | 53% | 17% | 30% |
| Georgia | 53% | 21% | 26% |
| Burkina Faso | 52% | 13% | 35% |
| India | 51% | 28% | 21% |
| Morocco | 51% | 16% | 33% |
| Malaysia | 49% | 36% | 15% |
| Taiwan | 44% | 20% | 36% |
| China | 42% | 25% | 33% |
| Viet Nam | 41% | 22% | 38% |
| Moldova | 38% | 23% | 39% |
| South Africa | 37% | 13% | 50% |
| Russian Federation | 37% | 20% | 44% |
| South Korea | 37% | 37% | 26% |
| Cyprus | 37% | 17% | 46% |
| Romania | 35% | 24% | 41% |
| Zambia | 34% | 15% | 52% |
| Ukraine | 33% | 23% | 45% |
| Thailand | 32% | 27% | 41% |
| Poland | 31% | 18% | 51% |
| Chile | 30% | 24% | 46% |
| Argentina | 28% | 12% | 60% |
| Japan | 27% | 55% | 18% |
| Mexico | 25% | 7% | 68% |
| Trinidad and Tobago | 25% | 9% | 66% |
| Rwanda | 25% | 11% | 64% |
| Bulgaria | 24% | 23% | 53% |
| Brazil | 22% | 14% | 64% |
| Switzerland | 22% | 15% | 63% |
| Italy | 22% | 19% | 59% |
| Uruguay | 22% | 9% | 69% |
| Hong Kong | 22% | 34% | 44% |
| Guatemala | 19% | 9% | 72% |
| France | 18% | 8% | 74% |
| Germany | 18% | 15% | 67% |
| Peru | 18% | 10% | 73% |
| Spain | 17% | 7% | 76% |
| Great Britain | 16% | 8% | 76% |
| Canada | 14% | 8% | 78% |
| Australia | 14% | 21% | 65% |
| Slovenia | 14% | 13% | 74% |
| Netherlands | 13% | 6% | 81% |
| Serbia | 13% | 24% | 63% |
| Finland | 10% | 9% | 82% |
| New Zealand | 8% | 19% | 73% |
| United States | 7% | 27% | 66% |
| Norway | 7% | 5% | 89% |
| Ethiopia | 6% | 8% | 86% |
| Andorra | 4% | 6% | 90% |
| Sweden | 2% | 4% | 94% |
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