The Washington Post had an article about the best states for women to live in, and it immediately confused me.  What does that mean, best states for women to live in?  Could some states be better for women than men to live in, and vice versa?  And what criteria did they use?  Did they try to measure the Nordstrom-to-women ratio in each state?  Or the number of different kinds of pocketbooks in each major metropolitan area?  Or did they measure how short skirts were and try to correlate that with happiness?

No.

Instead, one way they ranked the states was by how many female legislators they had.  This is based on the weird theory that only women can represent women's interests.  Conversely, if true, the more women there are in a legislature, the worse it must be for men, so the best states for women must be the worst states for men, right?

They also measured states based on the paid leave laws in the state, with states having more permissive leave laws deemed friendlier to women.  Because only women are interested in paid leave, right?

Another criterion they used was how supportive states are of “reproductive rights.”  That's a weird criterion, because my understanding is that women have the right to reproduce in all 50 states without restriction.  Of course, if "reproductive rights" really means "abortion," that's another matter.  And of course, the babies being aborted who would grow up to become women aren't counted as a factor against women's rights.

So which states fared the worst?  Typically, the Republican South.  Texas did especially poorly, getting an "F" grade on a number of the colorful maps provided by the WaPo.  From these maps, you'd think women in Texas were naked and chained to the bedroom 24/7.  But speaking realistically, I think women in Republican parts of the country are actually happier; they don't have the kind of animosity and resentment that so typify Democratic women.

I also wondered why there were no maps of the best states for men to live in.  I get it: the WaPo doesn't care about men.