"Women's empowerment involves a radical shift towards knowing our gifts and strengths and then fully embracing them to boldly show up in the world," Logan, author of the 'Self-Love Workbook For Women: Release Self-Doubt, Build Self-Compassion, and Embrace Who You Are', told Bored Panda.

"No longer playing small to make others comfortable or holding back due to internalized negative beliefs about ourselves as women in society."

According to Logan, who has developed strong clinical skills providing therapy in a variety of mental health settings for over two decades, it's important to remember that fully embracing yourself does not happen magically overnight.

"It takes consistency and intention," she said. "The first step involves believing you matter enough to learn, grow, and create a self-love practice. This repetition allows us to rewire our belief system and change the way we see ourselves, creating a new pathway for authenticity and living in your whole truth."

"Challenging and releasing negative self-doubt and critical self-talk makes space for self-compassion. Learning to set healthier boundaries, talking more kindly to ourselves, prioritizing self-care, and digging in deep to heal those wounded parts allows for the resiliency and consistency that it takes to show up and share your light in the world," Logan added.

Since 2006, the Global Gender Gap Index has been measuring the extent of gender-based gaps among four key dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Tracking the progress towards closing these gaps over time, it reports benchmarks and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across and within regional peers.

According to its 2020 findings, there is still a 31.4% average gender gap that remains to be closed globally.

Across the four characteristics, on average, the largest gender disparity lies within political empowerment. Despite being the most improved dimension that year, the gap on this subindex has only been closed by 25%, meaning there are still not enough women occupying seats in government across the world.

However, it's important to note that the political empowerment subindex fails to measure the legal rights of women and girls in comparison to those of men, which plays a significant role in determining the extent to which a society is equal.

The economic and labor market gender gap has been closed by 58%. This is due to the fact that, on average, only 55% of women are participating in the global workforce, and their presence in higher-yielding positions is even lower.

Plus, this disparity is exacerbated by the global wage gap, which affects women across all industries and backgrounds, and has remained relatively stagnant throughout the last five years or so. These components highlight the challenges women face to escape poverty and become financially and economically independent. 

At least 35 of the 153 surveyed countries have closed the education gender gap by 96.1%. However, this number varies across education levels.

Globally, girls are less likely to receive an education due to gender-based discrimination, child marriage, and the burden of fulfilling domestic chores, all of which prevent young girls and teens from attending school.

While more young girls and women are attending primary and secondary school, less than half are going on to attend college.

Although the global gender gap for health care and survival has been closed by 95.7%, millions of women worldwide still do not have equal access to health care, especially reproductive health care.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, vice-president for development at the Brennan Center for Justice, thinks that period poverty and menstrual stigma play significant roles in holding society back from achieving gender equality, highlighting that these barriers can also prohibit them from participating in politics, the workforce, and education.

In order to achieve gender equality and make all of these pictures a thing of the past, countries across the globe must increase the number of women in government, ensure education is accessible to all women and girls, create free or affordable child care so that more women can participate in the labor market, and provide access to safe reproductive health care.

Megan Logan is happy that things are finally moving. "Women have far too long held themselves back with internalized shame-based beliefs from society and cultural imprinting," she said. "We continue to embark on an ever-evolving employment journey. Through the different stages of life and over time, the self-love journey never ends."

"I believe women have become tired of constantly nurturing others without replenishing what makes their hearts and souls happy and fulfilled. While self-empowerment is an individualized journey, it happens on a collective level as well," she said. "As more women do their individual work, self-love can radically change the world we live in. I see this happening all over the globe. My first book, Self-Love Workbook for Women, has been translated into over 18 languages! How amazing that women all over have empowered themselves in learning to evolve and grow!" she said.