The report shows that progress has been made in the past two decades, and there's both good news and bad news to draw from.

Health and education have vastly improved for women worldwide since 1995, with the maternal mortality rate halved since 1995 and attendance at primary school nearly equal among boys and girls.

But women’s economic participation has not kept pace and the gap in secondary school education for women and wage equality is severely lacking.

Actress Patricia Arquette recently brought up the issue of the gender pay gap in an impassioned Oscars acceptance speech. "It is our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America," she said, to a crowd of leading Hollywood directors and actors.

From domestic abuse to the gender pay gap; what every woman should know about the world we live in today