Nagpur: The annual gender gap report of World Economic Forum (WEF) has received flak from men’s rights activists in the country who believe that it is biased towards women . They say the report is drafted in a way that would end up spreading misandry by blaming men for social issues caused due to poverty and bad governance, while completely ignoring various issues they face.

In the report, India ranked 114 among 142 countries, slipping from 101 last year. The ranking was given on the basis of factors like economic participation, health, educational attainment and political empowerment of women in society. Terming the report one-sided and unscientific, men’s right activists said it not only openly acknowledges measuring gender gap only in one direction (for women), but also celebrates gender inequalities suffered by men.

For example, a country with more girls enrolled in schools gets the same rank as the one with equal enrolment of the two genders. “Lower enrolment of boys can be a disadvantage to them. Also, the phenomenon of more suicides by men than women is also considered as gender equality. Such a definition of gender equality is completely bogus and unacceptable,” said Anil Kumar, founder member of Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) who is a social researcher himself.

SIFF said governments across the globe should focus on good governance and poverty alleviation rather than getting pressured by international agencies into formulating discriminatory and unjust anti-male policies. “We are trying to get the laws in our country made gender-neutral. Reports like these can be used by women’s organizations to lobby against these changes in terms of social services like food security and protection from domestic violence. In India, lakhs of men are already suffering due to false dowry and rape cases against them,” pointed out SIFF president Rajesh Vakharia.

These activists feel that ‘battle of the sexes’, which is used as a comical term, gets an entirely new meaning due to such reports. They believe that along with study about the condition of women, another one about the condition of men in all countries should also be conducted. “Countries should be ranked in the gender gap report only on the basis of both the reports,” they say.

“For example, maternal mortality rate and low literacy issues are more due to poverty and bad governance than any kind of serious gender discrimination. When almost 20% of population is below poverty line in India, instead of crying out gender discrimination, we should work to reduce poverty,” said Kumar pointing out that it has been observed that generally good governed and less corrupt countries have got better ranks.

