Today is Women's Equality Day and with it comes the obligatory discussion about the gender gap.?[endif]

WalletHub says women's rights in the U.S have made leaps and bounds since the passage of the 19th Amendment. Yet it adds that many women still struggle to crack the proverbial glass ceiling and, feminist or not, any American can "easily discern the disgracefully wide gender gap" in the 21st century.

"They say feminists can 'easily discern the disgracefully wide gender gap in the 21st century,' (but) I don't discern it and a lot of people don't discern it," responds Charlotte Hays, director of cultural programs at Independent Women's Forum. "This is a time of opportunity for women, so to talk about the gender gap is to pretend you're living in the past."

Still, WalletHub has ranked the best and worst states for women's equality for 2016. WalletHub's analysts identified "the most gender-egalitarian states by comparing them across 15 key metrics."

"Our data set ranges from the gap between female and male executives to the disparity between women's and men's unemployment rates," explains WalletHub. ??"One of the things cited in this WalletHub study is the wage gap," Hays adds. "The wage gap that they cite is 78 cents on a dollar, (but) that's a phony wage gap figure."

When you factor in the choices that women make, the majors they have in college, whether or not they take time out of the workforce to raise kids, Hays says the gap is different.

"When you factor in all these things, the gender gap becomes 98 cents on the dollar," she says. "Now I want my two cents, don't get me wrong, but to cite this outdated 78 cent gender gap just calls the WalletHub project into question."

Hays also takes exception to WalletHub's nod to the Center for American Progress and World Economic Forum's ranking of the most gender equal countries.

The IWF director says the former is an organization with close ties to the Obama administration. As for the World Economic Forum's ranking, Hays considers it to be a ranking based on all kinds of fallacies.

"They're not based on whether women have opportunities and good lives," she explains. "They're based on statistics such as 'Is Hillary Clinton president?'"