The world will win only when women win

livemint.com:

In May 1988, Alejandra Arévalo became the first female geologist to enter an underground mine in Chile. In doing so, she defied a popular myth: that a woman brings bad luck by venturing into a mine. She also broke the law.

At the time, Chilean women were forbidden to work in underground mining or in any other job that “exceeded their strength or put at risk their physical or moral condition." Arévalo’s defiance helped spark a revolution. By 1993, the restrictions on women in mining had been abolished; and by 2022, women represented 15% of the Chilean mining workforce, a threefold increase since 2007. Progress has occurred worldwide over the past half-century.

Globally, women’s legal rights have improved by about two-thirds, on average, since 1970. Major reforms have dismantled a wide array of barriers that women face, especially in the workplace and parenthood. Yet, it’s clear that there is still a huge global gender gap.

Data shows that the gap is much wider than thought. When legal differences regarding protections against violence and access to childcare are considered, women enjoy just two-thirds of the legal rights that men do—not 77%, as was previously believed. The World Bank’s latest Women, Business and the Law report says that no country in the world grants women the same legal rights as men.

The greatest deficiency involves safety: women enjoy barely one-third of the necessary legal protections against domestic violence, sexual harassment and femicide. Inadequate access to childcare services is another hindrance. Only 62 economies have established quality standards governing childcare services.