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Another female friend of mine lives in Calgary, Alberta. She is a lawyer, works in government relations for an energy company, and plays a mean game of golf. Like friend #1, she is uber-connected at home and across the country, politically and socially, and enjoys private time with her husband, stepchildren, and friends.

If you asked these women to describe their lives, they’d both probably have few complaints. However, according to a study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, friend #1 should be rejoicing, while friend #2 should be grousing. Why? Because while Victoria is the best place to be a woman in Canada, Calgary is the third-worst.

The CCPA study used five criteria in its ranking: economic security, leadership, health, personal security, and education. It focused not on overall well-being, but on the gap between men and women, by measuring “the access women and men have to the public goods available in their community, not the overall wealth of a community.” In other words, the study pulls women out of their personal context, particularly family status, and evaluates them in isolation, a bit curious for an organization that hails from the it-takes-a-village side of the social divide.

It’s also disingenuous, as the well-being of women is directly affected by that of the other people in their lives, such as the earning power of their partner (who according to 2011 Statistics Canada data, is of the opposite gender in 99% of couples). Oshawa, which the study ranks 10th overall, has one of the highest gender wage gaps: men’s full-time average wages are $66,100; women’s, $38,500. Yet the city also has one of the smallest poverty gaps between the genders, 7 per cent of men and 8.5 per cent of women, likely the result of sharing economic benefits within households.