3 Core Gender Beliefs

If you want to understand any society, it’s useful to examine three core gender beliefs:

1. Men are high status, women are low status.

2. Women must be chaste, and stay away from unrelated men

3. Marriage and motherhood are paramount; divorce is shameful.

These gender beliefs were common to almost all historical societies, albeit to different degrees. Studying the global history of gender, I find that cultural change has been more rapid in places where (2) was relatively weak. Women then seized economic opportunities, demonstrated equal competence, and built institutions that uphold equal status.

Culture remains firmly entrenched where there’s strong endorsement of (1), (2), (3), alongside tight-knit kinship, strong religiosity, weak economic growth, and authoritarianism.

Let me illustrate with a comparison of Pakistan, Western Europe, Mexico, Cambodia, Nigeria and East Asia.