Women own more than 42 percent of District businesses, a factor in why D.C. ranks the highest among 14 southern states on the overall status of women in a new report released today.

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research gave the District a grade of “B,” whereas all other jurisdictions it reviewed got no more than a “C-“. The report’s authors analyzed “political participation, employment and earnings, work and family, poverty and opportunity, reproductive rights, health and well-being, and violence and safety” to score the states. D.C. received an “A” or “A-” in the second, fourth, and fifth areas.

“With over one third of the nation’s women and girls calling the South home, a lack of progress for women in the region is a setback for the United States overall and especially for the South,” IWPR President Heidi Hartmann said in a statement. “The good news is that this report provides a roadmap for accelerating lasting change for women in the South.”