Stockholm is Twice as Sexist as Havana

It is a very sad fact that sexual inequality exists in just about every country of the world. The disparity in the number of streets named for men and the number of streets named for women is perhaps not the most malign form of that inequality but it is extremely pervasive. It signifies how undervalued and unrecognized women and women's achievements are in all areas of society. 

According to Geochicas' analysis Havana is one of the least sexist cities in the world in the area of street nomenclature. Their interactive map Las Calles de las Mujeres explores the ratio of streets named for men and women in a number of cities in Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Cuba, Paraguay, Peru, Italy and Uruguay. Of these Havana has the highest percent of streets named after women. In Havana 37.8% of streets named for people are named after women and 62.2% are named for men. However, even though Havana has a higher ratio of streets named for women than all the other cities on Las Calles de las Mujeres, the number of streets named for men still far out-weighs the number of streets named for women.

According to Mapping Diversity in Europe the city of Stockholm has one of the highest percentages of streets named for women. In Stockholm 19.5% of streets are named for women (out of the streets dedicated to individuals). That makes it just under half as sexist as Havana - but still less sexist than every other European city featured on Mapping Diversity. 

Mapping Diversity has now mapped the streets named for men and women in 30 European cities. If you open one of these maps you can view all the streets in the city which have been named after a woman. Each of these streets is color-coded to indicate if the woman was honored for her role in politics, culture, religion or 'other'.

The EqualStreetNames project has also analyzed the inequality in street names in 50 cities around the world (including San Francisco, Berlin, Brussels and Vienna). According to their analysis San Pablo in the Philippines is one of the least sexist cities, with 22.86% of the streets named after people being named for women. In comparison only 5.88% of gendered streets in San Francisco have been named for women. 

The EqualStreetNames project has also found a number of European cities which are less sexist than Stockholm. These include Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany (with 22.47% of streets named for people named after women) and Bolzano, Italy (20.33% of streets named for people named for women).