Best Places to be a Woman

Newsweek magazine recently ranked 165 countries to measure the state of women's progress across the globe. Below are the 5 categories that were examined and graded:

1. Treatment under the law

2. Workforce participation

3. Political power

4. Access to education

5. Access to health care

I am happy to say that Canada placed very high! Check out the top scores:

Newsweek highlights women's progress worth celebrating. Examples include a woman holding the top spot at the International Monetary Fund, self made female billionaires in Beijing, and women holding highest political offices from Thailand to Brazil, Costa Rica to Australia!

Unfortunately, there are also countries highlighted where women are not progressing. In Saudi Arabia, women cannot drive. In Somalia, 95% of women are subjected to genital mutilation. Also, the poverty rate in the U.S.A. rose to 14.5% last year (the highest in 17 years!).

What stood out to me the most in this article was a success story about a country who would have ranked very poorly less than 10 years ago but is now climbing the charts. Take a look at what Newsweek had to say about it:

"In our own research, the country that holds some of the most significant lessons doesn’t rank at the top or the bottom, although a decade ago, it almost surely would have come close to last. In 2003, after decades of civil war, Rwanda’s transitional government passed legislation requiring that a third of the seats in Parliament be held by women. Today, its Parliament is more than 50 percent women, and girls are enrolled in secondary school at the same rate as boys. Last year the World Economic Forum ranked Rwanda first among East African nations in economic innovation."

Oh, and incase you were wondering, the United States placed 8th. They had an overall score of 89.8 compared to Canada's score of 96.6!