I can't find any references in the report to Melinda as an example of gender inequality, and it seems extremly atypical of the Gates' to say that. Which part are you referring to, exactly?
the visual organization of that graphic is deeply flawed as it suggests that each person overcomes those obstacles in a series of consecutive steps, on their journey
Hm. I do find that to be in somewhat poor taste, but only because they've drawn her gender-hurdle as being almost the same size as the one for the girl born in Sahel. I'm willing to bet that if you asked the Gates, they would both say that the girl born in Sahel faces a far more considerable gender hurdle than Melinda did.
I'd say they just ran a regression on the variables without any interactions between gender and other variables. It seems more likely than them trying to make an argument about equal struggles.
Well, the title of the article is "HOW GEOGRAPHY AND GENDER STACK THE DECK FOR (OR AGAINST) YOU". Yet they don't provide any examples or evidence that your gender works for or against you _except_ in the cases of poor countries. It seems a little underhanded to imply that women are disadvantaged in western countries - if anything, it's the other way around.