Harriet Harman has hit out at Jeremy Corbyn over the lack of women in Labour's top jobs, accusing the leader of coming from a strand of the left that viewed women's rights as a "bit of a distraction".
The former deputy said it was difficult for Labour to lead the way on gender equality when its most senior jobs were taken by men.
Ms Harman also made clear her frustrations about the shift to the left in the party telling a conference she was in Labour to change laws, not for "doctrinal purity".
"It is very difficult to be a party arguing for women's advance when your top swathe is men," she said at the Where are the Women event hosted by Lucy Cavendish College Cambridge.
"I think that the strand of the left that Jeremy comes from has never been a gender motivated part of the left.
"It comes from a time in a way when gender was a new insurgency that arrived later on and was seen as a bit of a distraction from the proper left right struggle."
Labour's elected deputy leader, general secretary and London mayoral candidate are all men and Mr Corbyn was criticised for failing to give any of the shadow cabinet positions traditionally viewed as the most senior to women.
Ms Harman said: "Jeremy needs to think about how it has been perceived and there is a very easy way to solve that, which is that we can have an additional deputy who is elected either by all women in the party or all men and women in the party, but who is elected to be the additional deputy who is a woman."
"So, we would have a leadership team of three of which one would be a woman and she would be there in her own right, not appointed by Jeremy."
Asked about the shift to the left, Ms Harman said she was in the party to change laws, not for "doctrinal purity".
"I think that the ultimate responsibility of a leader of the Labour party is to take us, a Labour party, nearer to power and that is what needs to happen because we can protest about what the Tories are doing but we have got understand why it is that they are in government.
"They are in government because people voted for them in sufficient numbers and didn't vote for us in sufficient numbers."
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