2013 Gender Gap Report Ranks America as 23rd Best Place for Women (Out of 136 Countries)

Well, the 2013 Gender Gap Report is out, and the United States ranks #23 out of 136 countries as far as the status of women is concerned. And the U.S. has NOT made relative progress; it has actually fallen one place in the rankings since last year. Perhaps we (as in the U.S.) have not actually fallen backwards but rather have stagnated as the status of women in other countries has improved slightly. Either way, we have a long way to go. But naturally, this is only a relative measure with other countries; the relative rankings don't measure the absolute progress being made in each country. Hopefully, there have been improvements across the board. But broadly speaking, as you can see from the rankings table on pages 9-10 of the report, Scandinavia seems to be the best place to be a woman right now, and the Middle East seems to be the worst.

Gender Gap Report 2013 - World Economic Forum

 

Gender Equality Rankings by U.S. State

Here is a really cool compilation of data and infographic which tells us the rankings for all U.S. states in terms of women's equality. The Map incorporates all kinds of different factors, from number of women in political office, to number of women living in poverty, size of the wage gap, pro-choice/anti-choice laws, paid leave laws, number of women in management positions, etc. If you click on the link to explore the data in more detail, you can actually look at each individual factor they analyzed and view all the states by rank on that particular factor. Many of these rankings are no surprise, but there are others which seem inconsistent with my personal experiences . . . . One thing that came as no surprise to me, however, is that the Deep South is not the nation's hub for gender equality! How do your states fare?

Mapping the State of Women in America - Center for American Progress