List: 'Global Gender Gap 2010 Index rankings'

Today’s ‘List Friday’. The World Economic Forum [WEF] is a Geneva-based non-profit organisation founded in 1971 and best known for its Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Its website says it’s impartial, and committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas [1]. Believe that if you will. I’ve previously written that my four darling daughters have made me an honorary woman [2]. So I keep a keen eye on women’s rights. And women’s progress. Or lack of it. Today’s list – the WEF’s ‘Global Gender Gap 2010 Index rankings’ – was released last Tuesday. The Index assesses 134 countries on how well they divide resources and opportunities amongst their male and female populations regardless of the overall levels of these resources. It looks at four areas, i.e. economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, and health and survival. Here’s the media release [3] and the list [4]. The Nordic countries top the list. Apart from Lesotho, the top 15 are First-World and Second-World nations. Of the 134, Australia’s number 23 – below the UK (15), the USA (19) and Canada (20). Israel’s ranked 52. Of the Arab countries, the highest-ranked’s the United Arab Emirates at 103. That light unto the nations, the wondrous, non-racist country calling itself the Islamic Republic of Iran, is ranked 123, i.e. 12th last. Almost all the countries immediately ahead of it, and 10 of the 11 countries following it, are Muslim. Ho hum.