International Women’s Day 2020
By: Lydia Finzel
Mar 10, 2020
Since 1911, each year countries all over the world celebrate International Women’s Day on 8th of March. The day celebrates social, economic, cultural and political achievements for and of women. It also calls for further action towards women’s rights, like fighting the end violence against women, closing gender pay gap, reconciling work and family, and equalizing women’s representation in leadership positions.
This week’s graph celebrates International Women’s Day by taking note of achievements and ongoing challenges when it comes to political inclusion for women using new V-Dem indicators on political exclusion by gender. Exclusion by gender occurs when individuals are denied access to services or participation in governed spaces based on their identity or belonging to a particular gender. Higher values on this index indicate higher levels of political exclusion.
The heat map tool illustrates gender exclusion between 1900 to 2018. It shows a decline of countries with a high exclusion score starting during the second wave of feminism in the 1960s. By 2018, 49 countries reached a very low exclusion by gender value representing the biggest group of countries in the world. Whereas women in Europe face only low levels of political exclusion today, women in the Middle East and North Africa still face high to medium political exclusion.
For further analyses and graphing tools, visit v-dem.net.
