Campaigners call on companies to do more than use day as promotional opportunity.

The failure of shared parental leave is a failure of government, of business and, unfortunately, of the majority of handwringing progressives. If the government wants a future-proof economy, if we want demonstrably better outcomes for our children, if we genuinely care about closing the gender pay gap, we have to overhaul parenting policy and parenting culture in this country, and we have to start now.

The Confederation of British Industry’s (CBI) employment trends survey found that half of businesses were putting a greater emphasis on gender diversity at all levels of the company, but only a third were placing a greater focus on gender diversity in their leadership.

The crisis engulfing the criminal justice system over its approach to rape cases is revealed by startling figures that show less than a third of prosecutions brought against young men result in a conviction. According to statistics, men aged 18 to 24 in England and Wales are consistently less likely to be found guilty than older men on trial. Young men accounted for more than a quarter of defendants in rape-only cases in the five years to 2017-18.

The figures have sparked calls for an independent review by a UK-wide coalition of women’s organisations. “This is a collapse in rape justice and we need to know why this has happened and what those in charge of the justice system are going to do about it,” said Sarah Green, co-director of the End Violence Against Women coalition.

The physicist Jess Wade, best known as “chief troublemaker at Imperial College London”, and Claire Murray, a chemist and beamline scientist at a UKsynchrotron, are raising funds to buy copies of Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Science That’s Rewriting the Story by Angela Saini and distribute them to girls. The pair want to encourage more girls and young women to educate themselves about the structural barriers they face and how to overcome them.

In its largest review of women’s rights in the UK, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHCR) warns that although the government has promised protections in the Equality Act will continue to apply once the UK leaves the bloc, “this political commitment is not included” in the European Union (withdrawal) bill. According to the report, Brexit could mean future equality and human rights protections under the EU are not binding in UK law and that existing ones may be removed. “Employment rights and funding for women’s services are areas of particular concern,” it states.

“It very much sends the right message that both boys and girls have the same entitlement of having the best possible chance to achieve in sport,” said Sue Campbell, director of women’s football at the FA and former chair of UK Sport. Advertisement “The introduction of title IX had a massive impact in the States, both in terms of developing women’s sport generally but also in creating role models in terms of managers, coaches. It transformed attitudes.”

This Fan Girl aims to replace what they describe as ‘over-sexualised and non-representative’ images at the top of search results when people look for images of female football fans. They argue that most of the images that come top in search almost exclusively feature young, slim white women, which only represents a fraction of female football fans.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said he was spearheading the women in leadership push – pairing high-potential women with both male and female senior staff members across London bodies – to give more women access to professional networks, opportunities and contacts needed to progress in an organisation. “It is shameful that in 2018 women remain underrepresented at all levels of government and leadership roles,” he said. “As a proud feminist, I want London to be a shining light in the fight for gender equality. I am pleased that we are showing the way, launching the first and biggest initiative like this in the public sector.”

Almost half of the companies included on a list of businesses feted as the best places to work as a woman in the UK have a gender pay gap higher than the national average, exclusive Guardian analysis has revealed. Of the subsidiaries of companies included on the Times Top 50 Employers for Women list in 2017, more than nine in 10 pay women less than they pay men on average, with almost half of the companies reporting a gender pay gap greater than 18.4% – the national average as calculated by the Office of National Statistics.