If our new President-elect has you reconsidering your stay in the United States, then check out these female friendly countries from around the world.  

Welp, there you have it folks, Donald Trump is officially President-elect. No matter how many times I say it, write it, or hear it, I just can’t help but think it’s still the punchline to a really bad joke. Hillary’s loss has definitely been shocking to a lot of us, and like some celebrities, we’ve probably contemplated fleeing the country and never looking back. Sayonara, Cheeto Face!

While I’d like to argue that there are many reasons for you to stay, donations made to Planned Parenthood in Mike Pence’s name can be done from anywhere in the world. But seriously, we need you. And so does humanity. So what I’m about to share should only be used as a last resort, because, surprise! the United States is not even in the top ten of the world’s most female friendly countries. Instead, we’re number 45, and are gonna need a lot of work if we want to grace the highest rankings.

For the last ten years, the World Economic Forum has been compiling the Global Gender Gap Report, which basically tracks and delivers the extent to which men and women differ in society. The study takes into account the following four areas: health, education, economy, and politics. This year’s report covers 144 different countries from all across the globe. And although it has been a decade since the first report, the World Economic Forum says, “data has revealed that progress is still too slow for realizing the full potential of one half of humanity within our lifetimes.” Touche, data analysts, touche.

1. Iceland

– Iceland has held the number one spot for eight years in a row, and has closed more than 87 percent of its gender gap.

– Political Empowerment is in full force, coming it at number one among all 144 countries.

– Economic Participation and Opportunity is in the top ten and there is said to be promising improvement in the number of female legislators, official, and management.

–  According to its performance on the wage equality for similar work indicator, there is still a noticeable wage gap.

– The country has has completely eliminated the gender gap on Educational Attainment, and has done so since 2009.

– And, since the first report published in 2006, Iceland has closed almost 12 percent of its gender gap, making it one of the fastest-improving countries in the world.

2. Finland

– Finland beat out Norway this year for the number two spot, and has closed more than 84 percent of its overall gender gap.

– Political Empowerment ranks number two in the world, just behind Iceland, with ministerial positions reaching an equilibrium among both sexes.

– Both Educational Attainment and Health and Survival came in at impressive number one rankings.

– The index’s estimated earned income scale shows that Finland also needed improvement where gender wage gaps are concerned.  

3. Norway

– Norway has reportedly dropped a spot and is back in third place, having closed 84 percent of its gender gap.

– Upon review of the estimated earned income scale as set forth by the Index, this country is in the top ten, and has an equally as impressive performance on the wage equality for similar work indicator.

– It takes the third place on the Political Empowerment subindex, has moved up four spots on the Educational Attainment subindex, but has experienced widening in its Health and Survival gender gap.

4. Sweden

– Sweden rounds out the Nordic experience for female friendly countries in the top five, and has maintained its number four spot for eight consecutive years, having closed 81 percent of its overall gender gap.

– Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex is said to take a strong position, thanks in part to its increase in female legislators, senior officials, and managers, which has played a role in being able to move up seven positions from last year.

– It has nearly closed its Educational Attainment gender gap, but has lost a spot on the Political Empowerment subindex, despite its equality within ministerial positions.

5. Rwanda

– Yes, believe it or not, this landlocked country in east Africa has beat out the United States for female friendly countries, not only in the top ten, but in the top five.

– Rwanda has beat out Ireland to take the fifth spot this year, and has impressively closed its gender gap by 80 percent.

– This increase in rank is mostly credited to its improvements on its Economic Participation and Opportunity subindex, where the country has moved up six slots from last year.

– According to the study, it remains the country with the highest share of female parliamentarians in the world at 64 percent, and maintains its eighth spot on the Political Empowerment subindex.

– Its Educational Attainment gender gap, however, could use some improvement since it ranks 112th, along with its Health and Survival gap, which ranks 94th in the world.

And last but not least, we have our honorable mention, Slovenia. With our soon-to-be first lady hailing from Novo Mesto, a city from the number eight country on the top ten list of female-friendly places, we’re slightly perplexed as to why she would want to venture into the misogynistic and sexist, among others, territory that her husband reigns supreme. But, hey, to each their own.

What did you think of our female -riendly country compilation? Still interested in moving? Share your thoughts with us on the  EcoSalon Facebook page!

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The post The Top 5 Female-Friendly Countries (You Know, in Case You Feel Like Fleeing the U.S.) appeared first on EcoSalon.

 Happy National Business Women’s Day!

There may still be a huge gender gap in the workforce, with even the women running Fortune 500 companies earning just 69 cents to every dollar earned by male CEOs. But women are proving to be major forces of change in virtually every industry, from international banking to non-profit organizations. These 10 women CEOs, including Eileen Fisher, Lauren Bush and Majora Carter, are promoting social and environmental responsibility within their companies and in the world at large.

On this National Business Women’s Day we salute them!

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Green for All

CEO of anti-poverty organization Green for All, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is also a sustainability advocate who has been named among the 100 most powerful people in California’s Silicon Valley. Green for All provides green jobs training for low-income people and people of color, and helped push through a California provision that guarantees local workers access to energy-efficiency and renewable energy projects. Before she came to Green for All in 2009, Ellis-Lamkins was the Executive Officer of the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council and Executive Director of Working Partnerships USA, which works to address economic disparities in Silicon Valley.

Kim Jordan, New Belgium Brewing

Along with her husband Jeff Lebesch, Kim Jordan co-founded one of America’s most successful craft breweries, New Belgium. Now the company’s CEO, Jordan was instrumental not only in bringing the company from a tiny two-person operation to selling beer in 26 states, but also in making New Belgium truly sustainable. The brewing company is 100% wind-powered and employee-owned, with a sustainability team visiting each department on a regular basis to make sure operations are as green as possible.

Through smart cuts to waste, energy and water usage, New Belgium has become a leading example of how breweries can take a sustainable route to profitability. The company is about to open a new brewery in Asheville, North Carolina, where it will revitalize an industrial brownfield and create new parks and greenways.

Eileen Fisher, Eileen Fisher Sustainable Apparel

The name Eileen Fisher is associated with timeless elegance, high quality and eco-friendly fabrics like organic and Fair Trade cotton, hemp and bamboo. As CEO of her eponymous brand, Eileen Fisher has committed to environmentally and socially conscious fashion, creating sophisticated garments that can last a lifetime. Many of Fisher’s garments are hand-sewn at a family-owned facility in New York City with a seamless process that reduces waste and creates a more durable product. The company even takes back used garments to either repair and resell, or recycle into other items like rugs and blankets.

Irene Rosenfeld, Kraft

Kraft Foods isn’t exactly known for being sustainable, more closely associated with industrial ‘cheez food’ products that barely resemble actual food. But Irene Rosenfeld is trying to change that. The Kraft CEO has dedicated a vast amount of resources and time to overhaul the company’s strategies, setting aggressive sustainability goals that have resulted in massive reductions in packaging waste, water consumption, energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. Kraft is also the world’s largest buyer of coffee and cocoa from Rainforest Alliance-certified farms. While the changes may be slow, they’re certainly notable.

Lauren Bush, FEED

Ducking out of her family’s historical involvement in politics, Texan Lauren Bush (now Lauren Lauren, after marrying the son of fashion designer Ralph) has dedicated her life and career to feeding the hungry. She co-founded FEED after becoming the UN World Food Program’s 2004 Honorary Spokesperson and is now CEO and Creative Director. FEED seeks to create products that can help bring food to impoverished people across the globe. The purchase of one FEED reusable shopping bag can feed one child in school for one year.

Gail Kelly, Westpac Bank

Can big banks be sustainable, too? Gail Kelly, CEO of Australia’s Westpac Bank, believes so, and has pushed sustainability as a business strategy in this seemingly unlikely industry. Under her leadership, Westpac rose to #14 on the Corporate Knights Top 100 Most Sustainable Companies  in 2011. Kelly has advocated for unprecedented transparency in Westpac’s operations and its sustainability report reveals such small details as CO2 emissions per employee. Westpac Bank also has 37.5% women in positions of leadership, which is unusual for such big companies, let alone banking institutions.

Alexa Von Tobel, LearnVest

28-year-old Alexa Von Tobel started LearnVest in 2008 to teach women how to be financially independent. Since then, the company has been valued at $100 million and expanded to offer affordable financial advice to clients ranging from those extremely in debt to people with a net worth that reaches 8 figures. Von Tobel got the idea while at Harvard Business School, taking a leave of absence to follow her dream. According to LearnVest, the company has helped over one million women gain control of their finances to date.

Majora Carter, Majora Carter Group

The founder of Sustainable South Bronx (SSBX), a non-profit organization that works to address economic and environmental issues through green job training, Majora Carter is now CEO of her own economic planning and consulting group. Known as one of America’s top environmental justice advocates, Carter’s motto is “Green the Ghetto!” and her current work with the Majora Carter Group brings her SSBX approach outside the South Bronx. The Majora Carter Group “uses the green economy and green economic tools to unlock the potential of every place – urban, rural and everywhere in between.”

Denise Bode, American Wind Energy Association

Denise Bode is the CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, the national trade organization for the United States wind energy industry. A nationally recognized energy policy expert, Bode was once the president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, but now heads up lobbying efforts to get funding for wind energy projects. She has also served as CEO of the American Clean Skies Foundation, and was named among Washingtonian’s “100 Most Powerful Women of Washington” in 2011.

Maria Eitel, Nike Foundation

After sportswear giant Nike got caught violating worker rights in outsourced factories around the world in 1998, Maria Eitel came on board to help turn things around. The CEO of the Nike Foundation and vice president of Nike, Inc. works to bring economic opportunities to the world’s most impoverished girls, focusing on 250 million girls aged 10-19 in the developing world. Eitel turned the Nike Foundation from a passive group lacking any real budget or organization into a force for change committed to gender equality. Initiatives that have been created under her leadership include efforts to keep girls in school in Zambia, to avoid early marriage in Ethiopia, and to build rural learning centers in Bangladesh.

Images: wikimedia commons, new belgium brewing, eileenfisher.com, wikimedia commons, feedprojects.com, westpac, learnvest.com, majora carter group, awea.org, unicef.org

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Sometimes, the solution is as simple as a bicycle.

Girls who stay in school for seven or more years marry four years later and have two fewer children. Countries where women’s share of seats in political bodies is greater than 30% are more inclusive, egalitarian and democratic. Two-thirds of the 130 million children worldwide who are not in school are girls.

There is an indisputable need for investing in and empowering women. Given the global scope of the issue, that task is daunting. Yet a solution as simple as a bicycle can make – and is making – a meaningful, measurable difference.

This year, 88bikes Foundation, a nonprofit organization that gives bikes to kids in developing countries, is launching its sixth and most ambitious project, Asha 2012. With the help of the Nell Newman Foundation, Asha 2012 will endow bicycles to thousands of girls around the world, from Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia.

The project was inspired by a bicycle endowment 2010 that took place at the Bihar Ashram in India, a shelter for girls who are survivors of sexual slavery. Sheltered by Free the Slaves for several months before reintegrating back into their communities this ashram provides a safe haven and a place to transition back into society after a gruesome reality. At Bihar, the 88bikes team met Asha. After six months at the ashram, Asha, which means “hope” in Sanskrit, reintegrated back into the same community from which she was sold. The story was so moving, she later became the namesake for the organization’s current project.

The goal for Asha 2012 is to provide bicycles to girls who have endured and transcended similar situations of slavery and abuse, in turn empowering them to take part in their communities, attend school and grow as strong women.

“We’ve found that girls tend to appreciate the bikes more and demonstrate greater maturity [owning the bicycles]. Women and girls deal endure and transcend tremendous abuse and unequal rights, especially in the developing world. We believe focusing on girls has the greatest overall impact on the community. We want to do everything we can to foster leadership and healing among heroic girls who’ve risen above challenging circumstances beyond their control,” says 88bikes co-founder Dan Austin.

Bicycles can be an excellent catalyst for empowering women, in all kinds of communities, as writer and cycling advocate Eleanor Blue points out. “Bicycling is a great economic equalizer especially for women. Women worldwide tend to have more domestic work than men, and bicycling when it can be an alternative to walking and transit is often safer, cheaper and makes things like school and working outside of the home possible where they might not otherwise be.”

Not only a tool for economic and social empowerment, having access to a bicycle often achieves a very simple, but powerful, goal: inducing a smile. “A bicycle is a tool of happiness and autonomy. With a bike, your world instantly expands,” says Austin.

At a first glance a bicycle might not appear to be the key tool for solving international development challenges, but consider all the elements that it brings together – transportation, education, health, etc. – and it becomes clear that at a grassroots level, two wheels could be one of our most effective ways forward when it comes to empowering women and making significant and long-lasting change.

“The 88bikes model is refreshing and effective,” says Nell Newman of the Nell Newman Foundation. “It empowers women though a grassroots and somewhat radical approach. Bikes are such a fantastic, low cost way to expand an individual’s freedom – freedom to move, freedom to do commerce – and receiving one will make a profound difference to these girls who have transcended so much already. We are happy to be supporting their efforts.”

If we are to bridge the gender and economic gap around the world, it will be imperative that individuals and organizations consider programs like these, as they deal with larger, more complex equality issues on a personal level. “Asha, our namesake for this project said that the bicycle ‘helps me feel equal to men,'” says Austin.

That isn’t just a feeling, it’s a reality. “Gender and equality starts with children. Often girls in many places are not always able to go to school, especially if they have to travel a long distance, and bicycling can bridge the gap, quite literally, between male and female education,” says Blue.

88bikes is currently accepting sponsorships of $88 per bike for Asha 2012. Donations can be made online at www.88bikes.org. Donors are asked to email a picture of themselves, to be presented with the bike. In return, 88bikes sends back a photo of the child with her new bike and her donor’s picture.

Images: 88bikes, Lynsey Dyer, 88bikes

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