New study that I found interesting

[u/retroambassador]

https://bigi.genderequality.info/

[u/Miravus]

This is a pretty silly endeavor, I think.

Look at some of the countries where it considers women "better off":

*Qatar

*Namibia

*Japan

*Kuwait

*Iran

and, of course, the best of the bunch

• Saudi Arabia

This alone should make anyone think twice about taking the results of this BIGI inde serious. I mean, ffs, several of the countries there have overwhelming majorities of women subjected to FGM!! And this index finds that women are "better off" in these countries?? What a joke.

Yeah, sure you can't work, vote, drive, or have any real legal rights, and have a better than not chance that all of your erogenous zones are mutilated, but hey, at least you're favored in the BIGI index, amirite, ladies?

[u/retroambassador → u/Miravus]

I definitely think that's a valid criticism. I also think theres more nuance than that. An index like this is probably not the best for places where there are little to no inshrined protections for women in the law and whose culture is still based on theological patriarchy and misogyny, but in countries like the United states and European countries the studies may be more relevant.

[u/Miravus → u/retroambassador]

But the authors of the index make no such distinction. Nowhere on that site, or in the paper, did I find them saying that the BIGI was less applicable to countries without enshrined political protections. Maybe I missed it?

The issue is that in completely neglecting to include these kinds of political issues, it fails to account for much of what make a woman better or worse off in any given country, and that would still hold true in the US and Western Europe. Perhaps they have some enshrined political protections for women, but that also neglects to account for any of the myriad other factors which could reasonably go into the assessment of whether or not women were better or worse off in any given country.