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I personally question the legitimacy / usefulness of affirmative action, but the best argument in support of it which I have heard is that people bound their career prospects based on the individuals they observe to be occupying those roles in society. For example, if a person is female and all the software developers they see are male, perhaps they believe that software development is inherently a male job and not for them. This could then lead to a negative feedback loop where females are afraid to make the first step into the industry because no one has done it before them, and the industry misses out on people who could turn out to be very qualified workers. Affirmative seeks to break this loop.