Monday, March 29, 2010

Iceland Leads World in Gender Equality. US Ranks #31.

Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand 'lead the world in gender equality,' according to the 2009 Global Gender Gap report released by Switzerland's World Economic Forum:

[T]he land of glaciers and puffins, population 319,000, is the most gender egalitarian country on earth, with women having closed 80 percent of the gap with men. Finland (2), Norway (3), Sweden (4) and Denmark (7) are in the top ten too, as is New Zealand (5). You could try harder, Spain (17) and Germany (12) — in 2007 you were in the top ten. And O, Canada: 25. Very sad.

Not surprisingly, these are nations that have made serious strides in the feminist and humanist goal of eradicating male domination. As is the case in so very many areas, the United States has a painfully long way to go. Oh, well, at least we are ahead of Namibia:

The United States, which prides itself on civil rights progress during the past half century, fell four spots from last year to stand at 31st place behind Lithuania and ahead of Namibia, according to the World Economic Forum, a nonprofit group based in Switzerland.

The report ranked countries according to how much they reduced gender disparities based on economic participation, education, health and political empowerment while attempting to strip out the effects of a nation's overall wealth.