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Data Stories

Love how these stories are interwoven with data to make them come to life. The fact that women are still making news at the same rate for various "firsts" is very telling:

Speaking of firsts, the first similarity we noticed between all the countries is the high frequency of the word FIRST. There are thousands of mentions, nearly 8,000 to be precise, of trailblazing women that shattered glass ceilings. In the recent past, outside Kamala Harris’ widely covered ascension to vice-presidency, Zuzana Čaputová became Slovakia’s first female President, and Ana Brnabić became Serbia’s first gay and first female prime minister.

Depending on perspective, you could see that number at high or low. 8000 firsts is not really enough, many more glass ceilings need to be broken to come anywhere close to parity. If you are being more optimistic, you could see that as a sign of plenty of glass already broken and tremendous progress made so its only small numbers left to go - that's why 8000. 

With the right analyst, any data can tell any story- something I learned decades ago and with that came a healthy skepticism of any story told with data. But in this particular case, I am looking more at the beauty of the production rather than veracity or authority. Ultimately it is up to reader to make what they might of this.

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