And while I'm on the subject of gender equality (or inequality), guess which two Caribbean countries rank higher than the United States in terms of how their resources and opportunities get divided up?
Well, I don't know what you think about the condition of women's lives in the Caribbean, but according to this most recent Global Gender Gap report, which assessed countries on how well they are dividing their resources and opportunities among their male and female populations, regardless of the overall levels of these resources and opportunities, Trinidad and Tobago (ranked 19th of 115 countries assessed), and Barbados (ranked 21st) are doing better than the United States at sharing the goods among men and women.
The United States ranked a lowly 31, and Guyana wasn't too far behind with a ranking of 35.
What does this tell us?
On Sunday a panel of four American journalists (two white females and two white males) were discussing the report and one of the men joked that he would bet no American woman would willingly leave America to live in some of the countries ranked higher than America. After all, he said, America offers more freedom and opportunities for its male and female citizens than any of the countries ranked higher in the report. And one of the female panelists commended the program they were on for demonstrating gender equality by having an equal number of women and men on the panel.
Of course the fact that they were all white and that the person most vocal about America's freedom and opportunities was a white male may only have registered in my black female consciousness. And I'm sure if they had heard me complain, they would have quickly reminded me that the president of America is a black man.
