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Graphics by Naba Khan.

The U.S. ranks 74th in gender-based wage equality among 145 countries according to the latest Global Gender Gap Report, the World Economic Forum’s comprehensive ranking of countries according to overall gender equality.

The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women is an international bill of rights for women that the United Nations General Assembly adopted in 1979. Only seven of the 193 member states of the United Nations haven’t ratified it: Iran, Palau, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tonga and the U.S.

The United States is also the only high-income, developed country with no guaranteed paid leave for new mothers, according to CNN.

So, what can be done to resolve these inequities?

One way to create better policies for women is to have more female policy makers.

Congress ranks in the bottom half of national parliaments around the world when it comes to female members (72nd). Women are better represented in Uganda (24th), Afghanistan (41st), Pakistan (65th) and Saudi Arabia (70th), according to the annual list the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) puts out.

Optimistically, other countries show unequal representation in government institutions can be remedied. Sweden, with 44 percent of parliamentary seats held by women, is fifth internationally, according to the IPU. It raised female representation without a gender quota.

“The turning point came in 1972 when the Liberal Party and the Social Democrats recognized the importance of involving women in politics and the importance women’s votes can play in politics. Since then, the situation has constantly improved for Swedish women in politics,” the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental organization supporting worldwide sustainable democracy, wrote in an analysis after the 2002 elections.

One would think that a country must be economically prosperous before the ratio can be evened. Yet, Rwanda, Andorra and Cuba are the top three countries in terms of female representation in the national parliament, and they all have gender quotas. Rwanda enacted a new constitution in 2003 that mandated at least 30 percent of all legislative seats be reserved for women. Their lower house is now 64 percent female and the upper house is at 39 percent.

It’s attainable. Women can be equally represented in the political system, but can it happen in the U.S.?

“There is no way that the US will ever adopt a quota system,” Founder of the Women & Politics Institute at American University, Karen O’Connor, said in an email. Instead, “Parties and women’s organizations, such as EMILY’s List, need to reach out to women.”

EMILY’s List is an American organization which works to get pro-choice Democratic women elected to office.

“[Political] parties also need to change how they operate, making the rules of the game more transparent, contestable and open to revision to enhance diversity of leadership within the party,” Denise Walsh, professor of Politics and Women, Gender & Sexuality at University of Virginia concurred.

There are less conventional ways of achieving gender equality as well.

Ninety percent of Icelandic women went on strike for equal rights on October 24, 1975.

Women across the country refused to work, cook and look after children. Banks, factories, schools, shops, nurseries and other institutions had to close or run at half capacity. Many fathers had to take their children to work. Sausages—high in demand for being easy to cook and popular with children—sold out, according to BBC.

Iceland is now ranked first among 145 countries in the 2015 Global Gender Gap Report.

Maybe America needs an Iceland-esque protest.