Show caption ‘The modern world was created by men, and it shows.’ Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA Opinion Men built this system. No wonder gender equality remains as far off as ever Ellie Mae O’Hagan With not a single country on track to achieve gender parity by 2030, it’s clear that radical overhaul is required Tue 4 Jun 2019 11.30 BST Share on Facebook

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I’m not going to lie; it’s annoying to start one’s week with the news that no country in the entire world is set to achieve gender equality by 2030. Given that our world leaders seem to continually miss targets on every measure put forward to improve things, from climate change to poverty, I’m starting to suspect they don’t really care about anything.

In any case, the UN reports that all but 10 countries have men as heads of government, so I’m tempted to paraphrase Greta Thunberg: we’re not here for you to tell us what you consider is politically possible in the society that you have created. The modern world was created by men, and it shows. The pay gap remains 23%; women are more likely to be in vulnerable work; we have less access to financial institutions; we’re less likely to have workplace protections and benefits; and we spend 2.5 times more of our time on unpaid work – in fact, women do so much unpaid work that if it were paid, it would account for between 10% and 39% of GDP.

The bottom line is that gender inequality is a choice countries are making, not an inevitability. And although a lack of women leaders isn’t helping, let’s not be shallow enough to think that simply putting women in charge of a broken system would fix the problem. Only deep economic change will provide the foundations for gender equality – and perhaps that’s why those who are doing just fine, thank you very much, are dragging their heels.

Britain currently ranks 17 out of 129 across the world, in a chart topped by Denmark. But since no country is set to meet the 2030 target at this point, there’s no reason why Britain can’t leapfrog over the 16 countries above it, achieve gender equality and act as a blueprint for other nations to follow. So how would we do it? Here are some ideas:

An end to austerity and massive investment in the welfare system

Contrary to what the Sheryl Sandbergs of this world might have you believe, the most effective way to make life better for the majority of women is not to fill up boardrooms, but to invest in a strong welfare state. According to Commons figures in 2017, 86% of spending cuts fell on women. This is because women are less likely to be in work, and more likely to be caregivers and take charge of household tasks. It’s rarely couched in this way, but the government’s austerity programme was actually a massive transfer of wealth from the poorest women to the richest men – whose wealth has actually increased since the financial crisis of 2008. It’s time to reverse this trend, and perhaps we could use some of the gargantuan wealth amassed by these rich men to do it.

Invest in measures to keep women safe from male violence

The majority of gender-based violence is carried out by men towards women. So to achieve equality, women must first be freed from the threat of this violence. According to Women’s Aid, in just one day in 2017, 94 women and 90 children were turned away from domestic violence shelters. No country can claim gender equality without addressing this appalling situation, and that means massive investment in women’s refuges, the opening of new ones, and investment in specialist services for women of colour, trans women, women with disabilities, and any other category of women who have specific needs that could be neglected by one-size-fits-all services. Really, it should be the minimum standard for a civilised society that women not be left destitute when they leave a violent partner. I mean, come on.

Strengthen trade unions and improve working conditions

I’ve written about this before, but when Harvey Weinstein’s accusers came forward, a lot of them said they’d stayed quiet for years because they were afraid they’d lose work. There are very straightforward ways of erasing this fear, and one of them is repealing anti-trade union legislation so that women can take action against their bosses without fear of being punished. Better trade union representation would also lay the groundwork for reducing the pay gap, improving women’s pensions and protecting women from dismissal or demotion if they become pregnant.

Improve women’s social status

I appreciate that someone at Gillette has started reading bell hooks and is trying its darndest to smash the patriarchy. But shaving adverts are not going to cut it (no pun intended). There needs to be a concerted effort to assert women’s equality in the public sphere. That means educating men and boys about sexism, it means deliberately funding more culture created by women, about women (remember that only one-third of speaking roles in Hollywood films are for women), addressing the way women are talked about in the media via regulation, and it means elevating women to more positions of power. Most importantly, improving women’s social status also means lowering men’s social status if they harass or abuse women. That means addressing the low conviction rates for rape and sexual assault, categorising misogyny as a hate crime, and taking punitive measures against men who harass, degrade or abuse women in their places of work or education.

Go internationalist

Buried at the bottom of yesterday’s gender inequality news is the fact that some states with low GDP are outperforming wealthier states in terms of improvement, even though overall they still lag behind because the starting points are different. Britain’s history of colonialism has not helped with this fact. To that end, part of our role as a world leader in gender equality means addressing the damage caused by our colonial past, by working with other countries to invest properly in healthcare and economic improvements, as well as tackling international tax avoidance and corruption, which are supported by the City of London. This is not about Brits viewing ourselves as white knights; rather it is about accepting that lower GDP in developing countries is partly our fault, and taking steps to put it right.

If you’re starting to suspect that these suggestions are less a manifesto and more a list of ways to undermine capitalism, you may be right. But what’s clear from this damning news is that attempting to tackle gender inequality within the current system simply isn’t working. Perhaps it’s time to create a new one.