Connecticut Hearts Women

http://courantblogs.com/susan-campbell/2012/03/14/connecticut-hearts-women/

Some good news for CT women, except regarding childcare and congressional leaders.

Hartford Courant
By Susan Campbell On March 14, 2012

The website iVillage has ranked Connecticut the No. 1 one place to be for women, based on data from organizations such as the National Women’s Law Center, National Partnership for Women & Families, the 2010 U.S. Census and the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

We scored well in part, said iVillage, because nearly 90 percent of Nutmeg women have health insurance, and we’re home to some of the top female wage-earners in the country.

We also scored well because of a history that includes Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ella Grasso, Helen Keller, and others.

Check out our measurements from iVillage (the interesting ones, not the body-ones):

The Lowdown: A select group of states earned high marks for being a place where women thrive but it was Connecticut that rose to the top of our list! Women here earn more, know more and take better care of themselves than their sisters in any other state.

The Good News: There’s so much! Ninety percent of women have health insurance, which is probably why Connecticut women are more likely to have regular Pap smears and mammograms. (Yay healthy girl parts!) They’re also fit and trim – nearly half have a healthy weight, likely due to their love of exercise, fruits and vegetables and quality time at Ocean Beach in the summer.

Financially, they’re among the nation’s top female earners. The median salary is $46,000. This is easy to accomplish when there are so many smarty pants in the state’s ranks. More than a third (35 percent) of women have a four-year college degree, well above national average of 28 percent.

The Bad News: Working moms shell out a huge chunk of their paychecks for childcare. Connecticut ranks among the most expensive states, averaging $12,650 a year for infant care. And in the state’s seven-member congressional delegation, only one representative goes by Ms. Thank you, Rosa L. DeLauro D-CT.

Hear Us Roar: Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, called Connecticut home, as did advocate for the disabled Helen Keller. Lillian Vernon, the first woman to take a company public on the New York Stock Exchange, can be found here too. Ursula Burns, CEO of Norwalk-based Xerox, is one of only 10 women leading a Fortune 500 company. And politically, in 1975 Ella T. Grasso became the first woman in the U.S. to be elected governor in her own right.

The rest of the top five states? Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, and California. Ella would be so proud.