I wrote a comment recently when I was debating someone on the validity of this report that was used to show that women only have equal rights to men in 10 countries, and I thought I should make it into a post.

The methodology they used to come to the conclusion that women only have equal rights to men in 10 countries seems questionable.The questions they ask are kind of vague,and I don't think a lot of them are actually true measures of gender equality.I will give an example.

Look at equador for example.

Under Parenthood, however, the lack of paid maternity leave of at least 14 weeks,government-administered maternity leave benefits, or paid parental leave results in a score of 40.

Equador scored a 100 on everything except for parenthood.This was because women didn't get 14 weeks of paid maternity leave, and because men didn't get paternity leave.I looked up how many weeks of maternity leave women get in equador, and saw that they get 12 weeks of paid maternity leave.So because women get 12 weeks of paid maternity leave, and men get 0 weeks of paid paternity leave they count that as women not having the same right as men do.I don't agree with that.

Also, here is an example of country scoring less then 100 on Entrepreneurship because the law doesn't prohibit gender-based discrimination in accessing credit.

The score for Entrepreneurship is 75 because the law does not prohibit gender-based discrimination in access to credit.

So they assume that if a country doesn't have laws against discrimination on the basis of gender that it means that women are actually being discriminated against.It's the same thing with equal pay as well.

They also talk about retirement age

A score of 1 is assigned if the legally established age at which men and women must retire is the same, or if there is no mandatory retirement age. A score of 0 is assigned if the age at which men and women must retire is different

So a score of 0 is given if the retirement age is different for men and women, well it turns out that many countries have a higher retirement age for men, but this would still be counted as women not being equal to men,because they count any difference between men and women as discrimination against women it doesn't matter if men actually have a higher retirement age.

I think there are some measures that seem legitimate like when they are looking at laws regarding women's mobility for example, but there are a lot of things that don't make sense, or are too vague.

Aside from those criticism, this report only looks economic factors, but that doesn't give you the full picture when we're talking about gender equality.

For example, they could include the fact that in most countries were military service is mandatory it is only mandatory for men.

They could include the fact that in some countries rape laws don't include men,and there also many countries were made to penetrate is not considered rape.

They could include the fact that in a majority of countries were corporal punishment is legal it is only legal for males

Why don't they look at how many countries allow infant male genital mutilation while banning female genital mutilation.I know the US and Sudan are two examples.

Why don't they talk about the gender gap in sentencing?

They could probably also looked into parental rights, reproductive rights,health funding etc.

There are a lot of things they could have included that they didn't.This is why I don't think this report is valid.

Let me know what you guys think.Do you think my criticism is flawed?Also, if there is anything else you think is wrong with the report that I didn't mention feel free to leave a comment letting me know.