A new book suggests corporate change is better than asking female staff to work on their own self-belief

After five months of flying — and numerous delays — Zara Rutherford is set to pilot her tiny plane back to Europe this week to conclude her epic trip.

Managers should think beyond male and female in their treatment of employees.

Microsoft’s shareholders have backed a protest vote calling on the company to reveal more about its handling of sexual harassment claims. The call amounted to a rare vote against management at the company’s annual shareholder meeting and brought an immediate promise from Microsoft of more transparency.

One woman had her bonus reduced and re-based four times after having had four children. Another was informed that being a working mother was a “lifestyle choice” by means of explanation for her lower bonus, while someone else was told to “focus on her baby” when she challenged the policy.

In developed countries, on average, boys underperform girls at school. They are much worse at reading, less likely to go to university, and their lead in maths is shrinking (to nothingness, in countries such as China and Singapore). In Britain, white working-class boys perform especially badly. Educationalists have only recently started focusing on the boy problem in earnest, though Smith says: “I don’t think there’s a school in the country that hasn’t thought about it.” So what can be done for boys?

An uneven gender balance has long been observed in parts of Asia, particularly China, India and South Korea. In those countries it is usually a result of the higher cost of bringing up girls — expensive dowries must be found in order to marry them or else they remain dependent on the family. In recent years, however, demographers have been struck by the emergence of a similarly skewed pattern in the Caucasus and the Balkans.

But the numbers obscure a more complex reality for girls in school, particularly at the higher levels. A web of pressures threaten to dislodge their education at any time. Higher secondary level is a paradoxical time of unprecedented freedom and looming obligation for young women.

Athletes like Alizadeh are emboldening Iranian girls and young women to push the boundaries of personal freedom. Iranian women have long been vulnerable to various forms of suppression and restriction — exerted by their own families as well as by wider society and the political and religious elites — that, in effect, reduce them to second-class citizens.