@OP - this comment is written from my perspective if one of my junior employees were to send me this for review

So what I'm seeing is that there is no real correlation between % of women in STEM and GDP?

As you only have a few data labels and not all data points, you could have replaced the points with the flags of the countries and eliminated the need for the labels. Granted, in certain areas this may have been a bit illegible as well - would be fun to experiment.

Not certain how you chose which ones to label (though it seems a choice due to available space for a label). Unfortunately due to the unlabeled dots, this chart would require an accompanying table for the unlabeled data points (not ideal).

If you wanted to have this type chart and select labels it would be when situating one group within the whole. For example European countries to the rest of the world (and only label the select countries)