Dishonesty: WEF Must Withdraw Rigged Gender Gap Report

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Henry Herrera

Dishonesty: WEF Must Withdraw Rigged Gender Gap Report

July 8, 2024 – Last month the World Economic Forum released its annual Global Gender Gap report (1). Citing the “lack of meaningful change” from its previous report, the 385-page document laments that countries likely will not achieve global “gender parity” for 134 more years.

It is difficult to imagine a more one-sided and dishonest conclusion.

According to information from the World Health Organization, International Labor Organization, and other global groups, men are lagging behind women in many ways. These disparities have been documented in 12 areas (2): Education, Health, Boys, False allegations. Victims of violence, Equal shared parenting, Treatment by the criminal system, Lack of equal services for male victims of partner abuse, Homelessness, Workplace safety, Reproductive rights, and Media portrayals.

But the World Economic Forum apparently believes that “gender equality” has nothing to do with assisting men. So the WEF manipulates the numbers to create a narrative about female “disadvantage.” According to WEF’s explanation on page 66, the reason has nothing to do with fairness or equal rights, but rather, illogically, to “not reward countries for having exceeded the parity benchmark.”

A review of three of the WEF Gender Gap indexes underscores the report’s pervasive dishonesty:

Health: According to the World Health Organization, men are dying five years sooner than women (3). And men experience suicide rates that are nearly three times higher than women: Men: 14.7/100,000 persons; Women: 5.3/100,000. (4)

But the WEF manipulates the numbers so women receive a score of 96%, implausibly suggesting that men are healthier than women.

Education: The World Bank reports that boys around the world face “lower levels of male secondary and tertiary education enrollment and completion” (5). And the OECD reveals, “boys are significantly more likely than girls to be disengaged from school, get lower marks, repeat grades, and play video games in their free time” (6). In response, Melinda French Gates recently announced a $20 million grant to alleviate this “boy crisis.” (7)

But blithely ignoring these facts, the WEF Educational Attainment index comes up with a score of 94.9%, again presenting a false picture of female disadvantage.

Economic Participation: Surveys show that only a minority of mothers prefer full-time employment (8, 9). A recent report by Eurostat revealed, “Women registered a higher share of part-time employment [than men] in all occupational categories” (10).

But apparently the World Economic Forum does not believe women’s preferences for part-time employment should be respected. So it cooked the numbers to report an Economic Participation and Opportunity score of 60.5%, again suggesting that women are being shortchanged.

So the objective is not honesty or truthfulness. The goal is to perpetuate a gender narrative that women are the continuing victims of an oppressive patriarchy.

In the final analysis, the Global Gender Gap report is a recapitulation of the old Marxist model: Regard men and women as interchangeable economic units, disregard female preferences for work-life balance, and regardless of the facts, conclude that women are the disadvantaged class.

Email your concerns to: public.affairs@weforum.org

The Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance – DAVIA — consists of 147 member organizations from 36 countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. DAVIA seeks to ensure that domestic violence and abuse polices are science-based, family-affirming, and sex-inclusive. https://endtodv.org/davia/

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