OECD fakes the Social Institutions & Gender Index to paint women as victims at all cost

Previously in this series: 

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Gender is only women

When looking at an "equality" index, the first thing to ask is what the author say the index measures. In the case of the Social Institutions & Gender Index (SIGI) it is:

The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) measures discrimination against women in social institutions across 179 countries.

https://www.oecd.org/stories/gender/social-norms-and-gender-discrimination/sigi

We can immediately make two important observations:

  1. Despite being named "Gender Index" SIGI only considers one gender - women. There is nothing inherently wrong with having an index that focuses on a single gander, if you do not pretend otherwise and if you also have an index for the other gender. OECD fails at both.
  2. While the authors say the index measures discrimination, as we will see, it measures anything that can be used to paint women as victims.

The actual SIGI is then calculated as follows:

  • 27 variables are aggregated into 16 indicators.
  • 16 indicators are aggregated into 4 dimensions.
  • 4 dimensions are aggregated into the SIGI index.
  • The value of each indicator, dimension, and even the SIGI range from 0 to 100, where 0 means no discrimination and 100 means absolute discrimination.

See page 15 of this PDF.

Let's take a closer look at some of these variables and consider what is actually being measured:

Dimension 1: Discrimination in the Family

Variable: Laws on household responsibilities

In 2019, Denmark was penalized with 50 discrimination points for Laws on household responsibilities because:

Danish law establishes that spouses shall give one another their support and demands that they jointly safeguard the interests of the family (Denmark, 1992). However, it does not stipulate any provision concerning the head of household. As per the Act of Parental Responsibility, parents have joint custody of their children regardless of their marital status and enjoy equal parental authority (Denmark, 2007).

According to OECD joint parental custody is discrimination against women.

Variable: Attitude towards housewives

Sweden is penalized with 42 discrimination points for Attitude towards housewives. This is measured as a percentage of the population thinking that “being a housewife is just as fulfilling as working for pay”. Yes, this is the discrimination that SIGI measures.

Variable: Women and men’s share of unpaid care work responsibility

Unsurprisingly, this variable interprets the fact that women do more unpaid work than men as discrimination, even though, as we know, single childless women living alone choose to do more housework than single childless men (see Women's "double burden" and "second shift" is a hoax - and data disprove it : r/PurplePillDebate).

Dimension 2: Restricted physical integrity

Variable: Laws on violence against women

Most Western democracies receive 25 or 50 discrimination points for their laws on honor crimes, intimate partner violence, rape, and sexual harassment not being fully comprehensive. However, the OECD provides no specific information on what is wrong with these laws.

Variable: Attitude towards domestic violence

The USA and Switzerland are penalized with 14 discrimination points, some of the highest scores among Western democracies. This variable is measured as a percentage of women who "consider a husband to be justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances.” Note that the OECD says that women are discriminated against not when they are hit or beaten by their husbands but when other women think such acts may be justified.

Variable: Prevalence of intimate-partner violence

While the actual data measures only IPV experienced by women, the name of the variable suggests that IPV is automatically only affecting women; in fact, studies show that up to half of all victims are men, and most IPV is mutual, with women possibly initiating more IPV than men. Without considering these factors, the simple prevalence of IPV is not a good measure of anything.

Variable: Laws on female genital mutilation

Countries like Czechia and Poland are penalized with 50 discrimination points for lacking laws that criminalize FGM on narrow grounds, even if wider laws exist, and FGM practice is nonexistent. This is the same number of points that Guinea-Bissau received for 52% of women being victims of FGM.

Needless to say, male genital mutilation is ignored.

Variable: Laws on reproductive autonomy

What the OECD means by reproductive autonomy is only measured by access to legal abortion. While I fully support legal abortion, I likewise support men's rights to paper abortion. But consider this sentence from the authors of SIGI:

Some variables, such as female genital mutilation or reproductive autonomy, measure absolute levels of women’s deprivation and do not have a male counterpart.

Variable: Access to family planning

Spain got 3 times more discrimination points than Iran (13 vs 4) for Access to family planning. This is measured as "percentage of currently married or in-union women of reproductive age (15-49) who want to cease or delay childbearing but are not using any method of contraception". That makes me wonder, who is discriminating against Spanish women and preventing them from using contraception?

Dimension 3: Restricted access to productive and financial resources

Variable: Gender gap in ownership of land

Measured as the share of men and women among the total number of persons who own land. I find this variable very arbitrary, as the absolute majority of men and women do not own any land. Yet, women are discriminated.

Variable: Gender gap in ownership of a house

This data is only measured for third-world countries, which is a pity because, for instance, in the US, single women buy 70% more houses than single men (Celebrating the Single Women Home Buyers).

Variable: Laws on workplace rights

While on paper, this variable measures "Whether women and men have the same legal rights and opportunities in the workplace" when applied by SIGI, it only guards for female disadvantages. Male disadvantages, including lack of paternity leave or gender quotas and regulations discriminating against men, are ignored.

Dimension 4: Restricted civil liberties

Variable: Laws on political voice

Despite having equal political rights for men and women, most democratic countries are penalized with 50 discrimination points for Laws on political voice. How do they discriminate against women? By not having "special measures" to promote women:

50: Women and men have the same rights to vote and to hold public and political office in the legislature and executive branches. However, there are no constitutional/legislated quotas or special measures other than quotas [...] in place to promote women's political participation at the national or local levels.

Women are discriminated against when they don't have legal privileges.

Variable: Women's political representation

As usual, the lack of women's participation in politics is interpreted as discrimination against women.

Variable: Gender gap in safety feeling

Finland is penalized with 94 discrimination points for "Share of men and women among the total number of persons who declare not feeling safe walking alone at night in the city or area where they live." 26% of Finish women and only 2% of men do not feel safe despite the fact that, by far, the most victims of crimes on the streets at night are men. What this variable really says is that women are discriminated against when male gender roles force men to accept their disposability.

Variable: Gender gap in confidence in the judicial system

Despite men in the US being twice as likely to be sentenced to jail after conviction than women and receiving, on average, 63% longer jail sentences for the same crime (source), men have only slightly lower confidence in the judicial system than women (44% vs. 49%). This makes OECD happy, and the US was not penalized with any discrimination points.

Summary

The OECD Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) neither measures gender equality nor discrimination against women. It measures our society's obsessive need to present women as victims and only focus on women's issues while doggedly ignoring male issues.

To quote u/TheTinMenBlog: Choosing how we measure equality is a privilege on its own.