While The Economist magazine trumpets women’s progress with covers like “We Did It!” with pictures of Rosie the Riveter, HBR comes out with a special section on the wage gap. Its recent news alerts give us headlines like “Women in Management: Delusions of Progress,” “Gender Parity: Not a Corporate Priority,” and “Adding Female Directors Hurts Norwegian Firms’ Value.” A range of earlier pieces focused on what women lacked, such as “Women and the Vision Thing” (women lack vision) and “One Reason Women Don’t Make it to the C-Suite” (it’s their brains).

Why is HBR so determinedly negative about the gender issue? Given the extraordinary, millennial shift in history we are witnessing the world over, is focusing on the negative the most useful way to accompany the corporate world on this journey? In 2010, when the US labor force has become majority female (after Canada’s)?

PEW research finds that 26% of wives out-earn their husbands, Goldman Sachs reports on women’s increasing buying power worldwide, more women than men are starting American companies, and women earn 6 in 10 bachelor’s and master’s degrees. It is time to shift the framing of the gender issue.

Women represent one of the world’s biggest and most under-reported opportunities.The business world has been so focused on stories like the rise of China that it has not been invited to see that, much closer to home, business could be reaping the benefits of the rise of women. Companies — and their business school feeders — have been slow in adapting and profiting from this shift, and part of the reason is that media too often focus on small, sensational and misleading parts of the story, including aspects like the wage gap.

The real issue isn’t salaries. That is a symptom of a deeper issue: a massive corporate mis-adaptation to today’s talent realities and the subsequent inability to retain and develop women as well as men. I call this “gender asbestos.” It’s hidden in the walls, cultures and mindsets of many organizations. But ridding the structure of the toxins will require more than pointing accusingly at the mess. It requires a detailed plan for how to move forward — and a compelling, attractive portrait of the result.

So can we stop the whining? Let’s give companies a better picture of the opportunities. As two BCG consultants argued in the September 2009 HBR article “The Female Economy” — a rare breath of fresh air on this issue from HBR — women represent a growth market twice as big as India and China combined. We need to stop with the endless attention on the barriers, obstacles and issues that remain. We know them already. It’s time to focus on solutions.

In my book, I outline four simple phases for companies to become gender balanced (not just women-promoting) and adapt to 21st century talent and markets. The major lesson? Stop asking “What’s wrong with women that they’re not making it to the top?” Start asking “What’s wrong with companies if they can’t retain and promote the majority of educated Americans, and can’t adequately satisfy the majority of US consumers?” Only the right questions can yield effective answers.

The wage gap and the systemic preference of the business world for masculine leaders are legacies of history. Competitive advantage in this century will go to true meritocracies that understand who their customers are and what they really want. The 20th century forced companies to globalize and learn the language and cultures of other countries. The 21st century advantage will go to companies that “get” the transformational shifts under way. These include technology, climate change, and female empowerment and education — forces I refer to as “web, weather, and women.”

While three-quarters of businesspeople say that their companies haven’t made a priority of gender parity, the best proof that companies are interested is that consultancies and business schools are belatedly writing and thinking about gender. As they jostle for positioning on an issue that none of them have managed successfully internally, they may learn to catch up with their clients — many of whom are forging ahead, embracing gender balance as a source of business and performance.

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox is CEO of 20-first, one of the world’s leading gender consulting firms, and author of the upcoming HOW Women Mean Business (Wiley, 2010).

Editor’s note: Visit our special package on women and the workplace pay gap.