Women do two-thirds of the world’s work, yet only make 10% of the world’s money meaning that there’s still a lot of work to be done in the quest for gender equality. Western European countries are normally held up as the pinnacle of female/male equality but David Kenner and Uri Friedman at Foreign Policy note that some surprising countries have made rapid strides. They include:

• The Philippines is the most impressive Asian country on the list.
• Spain which in the 1970s didn’t allow women to serve as witnesses or open bank accounts had, in 2011, more women than men in the country’s cabinet.
• South Africa and Lesotho are the best sub-Saharan African countries for women. Lesotho managed to edge out its much larger neighbor in the rankings.
• 71% of Latvia’s university graduates are female, and the supreme court is evenly split between men and women.
• Cuba comes out top among Latin American countries.

To read more about each of these countries, the substantial effort that most of these countries still have to make, and the (sometimes male) feminists that drove these achievements click here.

Source: Foreign Policy

Via: Freakonomics