Davos 2014 women rebels: David Cameron's 'lady in a red dress' to Davos wives ditching their 'white stickers' But even these advantages have their disadvantages - or simply serve to highlight how big the gap between men and women remains. This morning's special address by David Cameron is the perfect example. During the Q&A session, he fielded a question from one woman he called: "the lady in the red dress." It turned out she was Frances O'Grady, the general secretary of the TUC. Arguably the most powerful trade unionist and rated the 11th most powerful woman in Britain by BBC Woman's Hour. Oops. And my delight at not having to queue for the toilet was somewhat mitigated by the fact that on one occasion, I was faced with the option of using the men's toilet, or the women's and disabled toilet. The logos were side by side. Davos is the place for global leaders and shapers, but it seems not much has changed since 1971 when the World Economic Forum was formed. In an attempt to rebalance the scales, a quota system was introduced by the Forum in 2011 demanding that its 100 most important partners send one woman to Davos for every four men. Some people tell me that it's not unheard of for some partners to just send three delegates to try to avoid the quota system. And then there's the "Davos wives" conundrum - identifiable by their blank white badges. It's 2014 people! However, one such wife told me she'd stopped introducing herself as Mr X's wife and instead told everyone what she did. She's a well-known journalist, and was unsurprisingly treated differently when people found out. I can't think of any other event where it would be acceptable for the 'important people's' wives to be singled out and given a white sticker. Urgh. Can you imagine if it was the other way around, and husbands happened to be the plus-ones who got white stickers? No - the men wouldn't stand for it. What does this say about Davos? Well, imposing quotas for attendance has clearly not worked. Nor would it. The solution will likely be found outside Davos, by encouraging women to step up the corporate ladder, on merit, and be invited there, on merit. How this can achieved quickly is still not clear, sadly. But it has been great to see powerful women like Christine Lagarde and Jasmine Whitbread speak. We need to see more of them. And when that day comes, I wouldn't mind queuing for the loos.