So I wanted to talk about this article. From first glance, it seems extremely biased. To begin with, I don't deny that there are certain laws and policies (depending on the country as to what extent) that could be implemented to improve the rights of women. Though this article seems to do an excellent job of obfuscating the boundaries between countries a disrinction on certain facts. I am going to point out a few I have noticed:

The weakness is greatest in women’s safety—where the global average score is just 36, meaning women enjoy barely a third of the needed legal protections against domestic violence, sexual harassment, child marriage and femicide.

I find this to be odd phrasing. Is it implying that men do have protextiom against such things? If so, where? With the inclusion of the word femicide, I assume this is only focusing on women victims. Or is it in certain countries that women have less legal protection against such things? Of which I would have my doubt.

If the former, then is it applicable as a measure of equality? If it is just a statement of lack of protections, and this is considered inequality in itself (without measuring against protections for men), then doesn't essentially become a baseless assertion. Not only that, but potentially sexist as well as it would be stating that women need more protections then men to excel. Of course, it could be based on the erroneous declaration that the above are mainly gendered issues. With the exceptions of child marriage(?) and femicide. Though homicide might fit better here, of course something is going to become gendered if you change the language to exclude male victims. In short, it is really unclear what they mean by safety from violence let alone how they measure it.

Earlier in the article, they do state:

It expands the scope of its analysis, adding two indicators that can be critical in opening up or restricting women’s options: safety from violence and access to childcare services. When those measures are included, women on average enjoy just 64% of the legal protections that men do—far fewer than the previous estimate of 77%.

Which still doesn't add clarification. They do not ordain to inform as to what these legal protections are. It could be that they defined it around the above being gendered issues, as such the statistics could be mamipulated to come to this conclusion or there are actually countries where men have more legal protections against violence than women, which could be true in certain countries but these points are lacking in further clarity and specificity.

Most countries also score poorly for childcare laws. Women spend an average of 2.4 more hours a day on unpaid care work than men—much of it on the care of children.

This one I have less issue with. I am all for accessible healthcare, and it probably does mean more women can get involved in the workforce but there are further issues surrounding this. Such as women being more likely to get child custody, and men working longer hours in general (even when childcare is accessible). In areas where childcare is less accessible, does this not also mean it is unaccessible to men? In which case, should it be framed as an equality issue? Or, is it based around the feminist idea that differences in behaviour between men and women are examples of inequality under the law.

In short conclusion, this article states legal barriers but for a few select examples, don't really state what these are. And when they do, they don't adequately explain how these barriers solely pertain to women. They mention street harassment at one point, but are there laws in place to prevent street harassment against men in these countries. It seems to be taking laws that could pertain to anyone, but just stating how they affect women.

What are people's thoughts?