This article examines how the distinction between complicated and complex education systems contributes to our understanding of global governance and how "soft power" concerned with gender is used in international development organisations' responses to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, the global goal for education. Four global governance approaches which shape these organisations are distinguished: partnership building, gender mainstreaming, gender activism and contestation by global feminist movements. These strands of soft power have implications for how meanings of gender, education, power and accountability are interpreted. The work of three organisations -- the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), the Gender at the Centre Initiative (GCI) and the Malala Fund -- are reviewed to exemplify these global governance approaches. The analysis draws on a close reading of the organisations' published documents to build a history of how the gender concerns of SDG 4 came to be interpreted, negotiated, contested or ignored. The activities of the three organisations show considerable interplay between concepts of complicated and complex education systems. The discussion raises questions regarding what kind of work soft power in gender and education does in a context of huge and growing global inequalities and insecurities. In addition, the question is posed why there is still no institutional base to articulate a global feminist politics which confronts and seeks to dismantle unjust structures of power.