Massachusetts Ranked No. 1 State in America for Women

It is the month of March. Along with the (hopefully) warmer temperatures and the arrival of spring, March is also a time to celebrate women.

By presidential proclamation, March is recognized as Women's History Month, and this Saturday, March 8, is International Women's Day.

We thought this would be a great opportunity to take a look at some of the best states for women to live in – and some that could do better.

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Massachusetts Ranks No. 1 for Women

If you’re a woman living in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, congratulations! You are in the most female-friendly state in America.

WalletHub compared all 50 states and the District of Columbia across 25 key metrics related to women's living standards. Its data covered everything from median earnings for female workers to the quality of women's health care and even the female homicide rate.

While Minnesota, Washington, D.C., and Maine ranked higher in women's economic and social well-being, Massachusetts' dominance in women's health care and overall safety was so overwhelming that it pushed the state to the No. 1 overall ranking.

Worst States for Women

While Massachusetts leads the way, not every state is in a position to brag. Arkansas, Oklahoma and Mississippi occupy the bottom three spots for women's overall well-being.

Arkansas ranks dead last for women's health and safety, while women in Mississippi earn less and experience lower social well-being than women in any other state.

30 Successful SouthCoast Women Worth Knowing

In honor of International Women's Month, here are 30 successful women who have made a name for themselves here on the SouthCoast and deserve a spotlight.

Gallery Credit: Gazelle

LOOK: Milestones in women's history from the year you were born

Women have left marks on everything from entertainment and music to space exploration, athletics, and technology. Each passing year and new milestone makes it clear both how recent this history-making is in relation to the rest of the country, as well as how far we still need to go. The resulting timeline shows that women are constantly making history worthy of best-selling biographies and classroom textbooks; someone just needs to write about them.

Scroll through to find out when women in the U.S. and around the world won rights, the names of women who shattered the glass ceiling, and which country's women banded together to end a civil war.

Gallery Credit: Isabel Sepulveda