As some of you may know, gender equality is something that I am really passionate about.  Recently, I came across an article in the Globe and Mail about the annual global ranking of gender equality. Considering that Canada is a first world country, I was completely astonished that we only came in 20th. The recent study by the World Economic Forum is called The Global Gender Gap Report, which explores economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment between both genders. To read the article in the Globe and Mail you can go to http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/wheres-the-best-place-to-be-a-woman-its-not-canada/article15072531/, and to read the full report you can go to http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GenderGap_Report_2013.pdf.

In the study, Canada did do quite well in terms of education, economy, and health, the place where we really fell is in politics. Canada came in 49th for political empowerment. Horrible! Bangladesh is a place in the developing world where people are poor and working in factories in terrible conditions, yet they came in 7th in political empowerment. If Canada has less political empowerment than Bangladesh which is in the third world, it is quite obvious we need to give women a chance. Women and girls are no different than men and boys, so why shouldn’t we be given a chance to represent our country? India also did much better than Canada by coming in 9th. This is utterly embarrassing since countries in the developing world are doing much better than us.

Evidently, women in Canada need to be given more opportunities so that they can get more involved in politics.

Thanks for joining me on my journey to change the world!

-Diviya