The World Economic Forum's 2010 Global Gendership Report shows that the U.S. ranks 19 among the 132 countries studied gender equity and Canada was a surprising 20th in 2010. What's interesting is that when the study was done in 2006, the U.S. was 23rd and Canada was 14th. Which countries ranked at the top? Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and New Zealand. Canada is now actually lagging behind the U.S. in promoting women as leaders of organizations, even though Canada's reputation as a more liberal and socially conscious country is widespread. In Canada, women comprise just 2% of CEOs at Canada's 1,000 largest public companies.

At the same time, we're seeing a significant shift in women's participation in the workplace and education, but not an equitable shift in terms of rewards.

Men now comprise barely 40% of enrolled University and College students and graduates. In fact, a gender education gap, in which women are far outpacing men in terms of educational achievement, has been quietly growing in America over the past few decades. In 2009, for instance, women will earn more degrees in higher education than men in every possible category, from bachelor's level to Ph.D.s, according to the U.S. Department of Education. When it comes to masters-level education, for instance, U.S. women earn 159 degrees for every 100 awarded to men. For the first time, less than 50% of law school graduates are men in North America.

Today, double the number of unmarried women are purchasing homes in America than there are unmarried men. Forty percent family's primary breadwinner are now women, a sharp increase from past decades. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this fall, for the first time in U.S. history, women have surpassed men and now make up more than 50 percent of the nation's workforce. In 1967, by comparison, women accounted for just 30% of all workers.

The recession has hit men hard: 80% of the jobs lost during this current recession have been held by men. The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives has termed the current recession as a "he-cession." Christopher Grieg, of the University of Windsor, researched news stories, advertisements, autobiographies and government research reports to uncover a pervasive attitude that traditional masculinity is under siege and he says that the impact of job loss during the recession, which as hit men the hardest, combined with other social changes provoke a sense of the masculine identity under threat.

And that masculine threat may account for a resurgence of male testosterone in our culture. What does the future look like for men and women in the future job market? Only 2 of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade are traditionally male dominated--janitor and computer engineer. According to the Center for American Progress many of the new jobs replace the things that women used to do in the home for free. The range of acceptable masculine roles has changed very little as men avoid some careers that mostly women enter--for example, nursing.

University of Stockholm researcher Drude Dahlerup reported that in 2004 only 15.6% of the legislators in governments around the world are women; in Scandinavian countries, the figure is 40% and in North America it is 18.5% not much higher than the world average.

In 1970 women contributed 2-6% of family income; now the typical working wife brings home over 42% of family income; and 40% of mothers, many of them single, are primary breadwinners in their families. The idealized family, where the father works and the mother stay at home, is a thing of the past. As women become equal breadwinners, increasing number of them are unable to find men with a similar income and education, and are foregoing marriage altogether. In 1970, 84% of women ages 30-44 were married, now 60% are unmarried.

In both the U.S. and Canada, the majority of small business startups and entrepreneurial ventures belong to women, and the failure rates for small business startups are considerably lower for women than men.
Women own more than 40% of private businesses in China, where a red Ferrari is the new status symbol for female entrepreneurs. Women are assuming the top political positions in an increasing number of countries, including Australia, Finland, Argentina, Ireland, New Zealand, The Philippines and Latvia, and Iceland's Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir is the world's first openly lesbian head of state.

Despite these advances, the general social view of women as being equal to men has not kept pace. Part of the problem is still how women are portrayed in popular media. On the one hand we want and expect women to take an equal leadership role to men, yet in popular media women are still portrayed as subservient and objectified, which has a significant impact on young people. The Institute for Gender in Media released a report that showed 71% of the speaking roles for the 50 top grossing PG, G and PG-13 movies had men's or boy's voices. Further, in three years' worth of children's movies ranging from fictional narratives to dramas and cartoons, female characters are mostly young, sexy, beautiful and passive sidekicks. One quarter of the female characters wore sexy attire. One in five was partly nude. One in five is under the age of 21. In those same three years of children's' movies, the content creators were almost all men, comprising 93% of the directors, 87% of the writers and 80 % of the producers.

Judy Holm, a former executive at PolyGram Film Entertainment, who co-founded Markham Street Films, says that the current recessionary period has reflected an increasingly conservative agenda into Hollywood, where women once again are marginalized into either support or stereotyped roles. Part of the reason for this is the replacement of visionary studio heads by corporate CEOs, who are mostly male, and who are concerned primarily about the financial bottom line. According to the Women's Media Center, only 3% of decision-making positions in media (film, TV, newspapers, radio, online, etc.) are held n y women. Fewer than 25% of the op-eds are written by women, and of the 250 top-grossing films of 2009, only 16% could claim a female in a key creative role such as producer, director, writer, film editor or cinematographer.

How do women do when they're given a real equitable chance? Here's some data.

"Nordic countries continue to lead the way in eliminating gender inequality," said Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. "Low gender gaps are directly correlated with high economic competitiveness. Women and girls must be treated equally if a country is to grow and prosper." In Nordic nations, women live longer, have high employment rates and often enjoy generous maternity and paternity schemes. There are more than 1.5 women for every man enrolled in tertiary education.

Ricardo Hausmann, director of the Centre for International Development at Harvard University and co-author of the report, said "Progress will be achieved when countries seek to reap returns on the investment in health and education of girls and women by finding ways to make marriage and motherhood compatible with the economic participation of women."