Women and Politics

This post was written by WCF Fellow, Stephanie Glover

There is some disappointing news to report today. According the World Economic Forum, the United States has again dropped its ranking in the Global Gender Gap Review. The US has fallen to 31 out of 134. And, it gets worse. We’re ranked 40th for the health and survival of women and 61st for women’s political empowerment.

As always, Scandinavian countries lead the list; Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark all populate the top ten list. But there are also some surprises in the top ten, including South Africa, Lesotho, and the Philippines. The United States, though, doesn’t even come close and in the last four years, hasn’t even made into the top 20 countries.

Political empowerment of women is the United State’s lowest ranking at 61. This number is determined mainly by the number of women in the national legislature (17 in the Senate and 73 in the House) and number of years with a female head of state (big fat zero). Looking at these numbers, I guess we shouldn’t be that surprised how low the U.S. ranks.

Among this dire news, there is one exciting statistic—the United States is ranked #1 for educational attainment. We have reached gender equality in all four main areas: Literacy rate, enrollment in primary, secondary, and tertiary education. So,  the lesson from this is that there are lots of well educated, smart women who just aren’t running for office! Help recruit more women to run for office and ask someone you know, today. Perhaps next year’s ranking will put us closer to the top.

Tags: political empowerment, ranking, US gender gap, US low rank gender equality