Women’s rights have expanded dramatically around the world in recent decades. Attitudes, too, have become more supportive of gender equality. Yet people often think that others, especially men, do not support these changes. Equality in Doubt argues that widespread, exaggerated pessimism about the extent to which men support gender equality has roots in how women’s rights have advanced in the Global South and matters for the pursuit of gender equality in practice. Stereotypes that men oppose gender equality are grounded in longstanding social practices and ongoing inequalities. Cognitive biases predispose people to hold on to those stereotypes, even as laws and attitudes change, unless there is a credible signal that the stereotypes are outdated. Feminist activism, international pressure, and governments’ embrace of women’s rights for strategic reasons have all pushed women’s rights forward. But they do not credibly signal that broader public opinion has evolved, because people discount the reforms as imposed from above or outside. These forces are most potent in parts of the Global South that have liberalized but not fully democratized: people there are likely to be skeptical that reforms reflect a democratic consensus, yet the opposition has freedom to mobilize, and more open media environments amplify their voices.
Drawing on extensive qualitative fieldwork and four original surveys conducted in Morocco, this book shows how these dynamics play out in a country that has significantly expanded women’s rights in recent decades. In Morocco, doubt about support for equality is informed by perceptions of how reforms happen, who opposes them, and a “spiral of silence” among men that frequently obscures their real views. The book also uses cross-national data to show that people are most likely to underestimate men’s support for gender equality in middle-income countries that are neither harshly autocratic nor fully democratic—that is, in places where attitudes and practices have changed, but many view reforms skeptically and conservatives can countermobilize. Identifying and combatting pessimism is important: doubting support for equality undermines the potential of women’s rights reforms to change lives on the ground.