Shout it from the rooftops—the majority of people around the world are feminists. According to an Ipsos study, nearly 70 percent of the world claims to actively support women’s rights, including equal opportunities for women.
This revelation comes as a part of Ipsos’ survey, reported on by BuzzFeed News, of 24 countries and more than 17,500 people, ages 16-64. The study, which was conducted following Trump’s inauguration from Jan. 20 to Feb. 3, asked people to weigh in on feminism and gender equality around the world.
Although many people claimed feminist ideals, only about 60 percent of the world was okay with being labeled a “feminist.” India, however, had more than 80 percent of their respondents define themselves as feminists. The high number of self-proclaimed feminists in India makes sense following the new spotlight on women’s issues after a New Delhi gang rape garnered international coverage and outrage.
Not everyone in India feels safe fighting for women’s rights, however. About half of Indian respondents said they were “scared to speak out and advocate the equal rights of women” because of what could potentially happen to them. “Feminists in India are fighting for issues of immediate critical urgency—violence, equal wages, life with dignity,” according to Annie Zaldi, co-author of The Bad Boy’s Guide to the Good Indian Girl, who spoke to The New York Times. “If the stakes are much higher – if the question is whether I can go to work or not – then the sense of immediacy is much higher.”
While most people in China, India and Peru claimed to actively support women’s rights, Britain, Germany and Japan had the least number of women’s rights advocates.
Beyond actively supporting women’s rights, about 88 percent of the world agreed that they believed in “equal opportunities for men and women—that women should be treated equally to men in all areas based on their competency, not their gender.” Sweden, Argentina, the United States, Britain and Canada scored highest in this regard, with more than 90 percent of those surveyed agreeing with equal opportunity.
Unfortunately, not everyone agrees that women should have equal opportunities. Germany, Russia, Poland, South Korea and Japan showed the lowest support for opportunity based on competency rather than gender. Although Russia had low support for equality, less than half of the nation’s respondents said equality is still not achieved, while only around 40 percent said inequality even exists in Russia in the first place.
Many men still don’t think women are equal, either. Not so surprisingly, men around the world are more likely to say men are more capable than women—especially in China, Turkey, South Africa, Poland and the U.S. In fact, more than one in four American men said they agreed men are more capable than women. Look around, girls. You have a 25 percent chance of sitting next to some guy who thinks he can do more than you can. *rolls eyes, blasts Beyonce’s “Sorry”*
Feminism, or the political, economic and social equality of the sexes according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is finally taking a hold of the world’s population. This news comes just in time for International Women’s Day on Wednesday. Women around the world plan to go on strike in both paid and unpaid labor, taking a break from the global economy, to assert just how important women really are in the world.