Progress for the world's women has proceeded in fits and starts in the past century, but 2012 saw some clear advancement on numerous fronts and in diverse locations. But while global advancements on gender issues were escalating, at home, in Canada, the record remains decidedly mixed. Canadian women are presently losing ground on everything from pay equity to childcare, from poverty to homelessness. Canadians must come to terms with the irony of witnessing the advancements of women's rights on a global scale while at the same time dealing with the reality that this country has been steadily declining in international rankings of gender disparity.

Canada lags behind countries like Burundi, Latvia and Guyana when it comes to how much political power women wield relative to men, a new...