YOU’D have thought the clue was in the title of the show. But no, apparently there is genuine debate over who the star of Netflix series The Crown is. How else can you explain the fact that Claire Foy, who plays the Queen, was paid less than Matt Smith for his portrayal of the Duke of Edinburgh?

Or could it be that Ms Foy, despite being in the title role and carrying the show with aplomb, was paid less simply because she is a woman? The producers seemed uncomfortable as they trotted out a condescending line about Mr Smith getting more dosh because he was in Doctor Who, and well they might. After all, if the Queen can be a victim of the gender pay gap, then the rest of us have no hope at all.

Just ask tennis royalty Martina Navratilova, who claims she was paid “at least 10 times less” than fellow BBC Wimbledon commentator John McEnroe, a man who, it should be noted, won 11 fewer grand slam titles. And, as gender pay gap reporting in the non-celebrity world has revealed, ahead of a UK Government deadline, the situation for ordinary women is even worse.

There can’t be many who thought the historically macho banking industry would be a bastion of gender balance, but the sheer size and normalcy of pay disparities in the sector still has the power to shock. HSBC reported its median gender pay gap as 29 per cent – more than 10 per cent up on the UK average of 18 per cent – but this jumps to 59 per cent when it is calculated as a mean value. When it comes to lucrative bonuses, meanwhile, the gap jumps to 61 per cent.

It’s even worse at Goldman Sachs, where the median pay gap is 36 per cent and the mean 55 per cent, spiking at a staggering 72 per cent for bonuses.

Here in Scotland we often like to regard ourselves as a fairer, more egalitarian society, but as women already know to their cost this certainly doesn’t apply to pay, where the average gender gap is still 16 per cent. This week, moreover, we learned that publicly-owned Royal Bank of Scotland’s gender pay gap is 36 per cent, the same as Scottish Hydro Electric, and one point down on Aberdeen Asset Management and Standard Life.

It’s not just in financial services we see such inequality, of course, since a wide range of spheres have disclosed similarly depressing figures, including housing associations, engineering firms and drinks manufacturers.

Some of the media companies that report on these matters, meanwhile, are far from perfect themselves; ITV’s gender pay gap is 18 per cent (double that of the BBC), while here at the Herald and Times it is 17 per cent.

Below the surface, the story is similarly grim; it’s not only or necessarily that women are sometimes being paid less than men for doing the same job, it’s that men are almost always disproportionately represented in the senior ranks and thus get paid more. Unequal pay between genders has been illegal for 47 years, but the reality remains that women are still routinely paid less and men still occupy the majority of top jobs across all sectors of society, and dominate boards.

And therein lies the rub of what makes this such a difficult nut to crack; change is certainly needed in boardrooms, but it is also required at societal and domestic level, both philosophically and psychologically, by both men and women. Without reform in all these areas little progress can be realistically made.

The reporting of pay gaps will contribute towards a greater understanding of the extent and reach of the pernicious inequalities that pervade women’s working lives. But meaningful change is far more difficult to achieve than outrage, no matter how righteous.

Only a small number of the companies that reported their pay gaps published accompanying plans to tackle the inequality, and those that did were often woolly and immeasurable.

What does make a difference, however, is firms taking practical issues such as childcare seriously, offering things like on-site provision as the norm. Government, too, has a key role to play, by expanding free nursery and after-school places. The Scottish Government has long said it is committed to this Scandinavian approach, but many cash-strapped care providers and local authorities are critical of the lack of funds being invested in implementation. Close scrutiny will be required.

Society also needs to examine and move on from old-fashioned assumptions around who is responsible for caring in the first place.

And both sexes need to call out the lazy, sometimes downright sexist assumptions and excuses that still result in men routinely being paid more than female colleagues doing exactly the same job, and prevent women from climbing the career ladder to positions of influence.

Some men especially may be fed up of reading columns like this one. Well, make no mistake, I’m even more bored having to write them. But while half the population continues to be treated with such utter contempt and discrimination, there is no other option.