[hueving]

Why isn't the excuse of "representing the public" used to require certain members have a particular religion or race as well? What about income?

Board members are about as far from representing society as you can get (and that's not the purpose of a board anyway) so I don't understand why this is being mandated. Seems like a strategy for cheap political points rather than any kind of well-reasoned reform.

[close04]

Seeing “quotas” in action already I can tell you they have the opposite effect than desired or imagined. Until now some people could imagine they didn’t get the job but she did because she’s a woman. Now they know and they’ll always hold this kind of law as proof.

This does nothing to further women’s rights but certainly does a lot to discredit the ones that deseved to be there by casting a shadow over whether they’re there to legitimize the board in the eyes of the law.

This legitimizes the question “was it the skills or the legal requirement”?

[covermydonkey]

Quotas have been a disaster in my country. Instead of hiring the best people so that we can compete better we've had to optimize for this variable q and often those seats have been kept empty as we haven't found that special person.

[api]

Did school desegregation work?

[leereeves]

This isn't desegregation.

This is a law requiring employers to discriminate based on gender.

[api]

I didn't post the parent because I agree with this law completely, but to bring up the point.

The advocates of this law would probably argue that everyone discriminates all the time, including by gender.

I am on the fence. When I was younger I would have been firmly on the hands off libertarian side. Then I saw what a sham meritocracy can actually be and how much success is based on who you know. The more I saw of the high corporate and financial world the more liberal I became. Do some business consulting work and meritocracy starts to looks like survivorship bias.

[justtopost]

Success =/= Merit

[close04]

I don’t know, was a law ever passed that mandated at least one black student in every school? Or just that thay had the right to compete for a spot?

So then why still allow all white boards? All Christian boards? All binary gender boards?

Unless maybe it’s just a shrewd political move.

[LyndsySimon]

Yeah, they bussed kids in in the South.

[anon7429]

Uppercase Liberal politicians and their education wizards (those who forgot liberal values, but would rather inflict collective punishment as a "solution") had forced bussing of kids in Northern California in the 80's and 90's. I had to ride the bus for an hour and a half each way, three hours total per day, because there were "too many" whites and Asians at a better school one block from where I lived. And I got to deal with gangs (XIV and XIII), drug dealers and far worse. Getting up at 4:15 am and not getting home until after 5 pm... at 8-11 years old. Affirmative action, my left foot.

[close04]

That's a different type of mess. Was the specific quota mandated by law or left to the school or district level? It sounds more or less like what was happening with the self imposed quotas in companies until now. Many internal rules were re-written in such ways that sometimes finding the best person for the job was no longer the actual goal, but rather finding the best woman for the job. This was aimed at fixing discrimination with more discrimination at local level.

Now they took the next step and made it into law. They completely removed any illusion of a fairness for the next appointment on any currently male only board. Which isn't to say it was fair until now. Probably far from it. Just that now it's unfair with the blessing of a law.

The point is this is not about liberalism. The target isn't to fix the inequality issues. It's a vote grab. Which is why categories with less voting power and more PR issues are largely ignored many times and by many people.

[roenxi]

A slippery slope argument seems really justified here as this legislation applies to boards that are quite small in size. If women need this special advantage, we only have to find a few other deserving minorities (race, religion and age seem like reasonable choices) before it is illegal to use merit as the first criteria for making up a corporate board.

There is also a real concern with regulation like this is that the current climate of discussion is such that the negative effects are difficult to discuss in civil society. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people who object to this are sexists.

EDITED because I'd interpreted the article wrong

[AnthonyMouse]

> If women need this special advantage, we only have to find a few other deserving minorities (race, religion and age seem like reasonable choices) before it is illegal to use merit as the first criteria for making up a corporate board.

Adding other categories is actually worse than that, because it creates the need to specifically appoint an asian catholic female age 35-49. An asian catholic female in the 50-74 age group is no good because then the younger age group is underrepresented, a hispanic catholic female in the 35-49 age group is no good because then asians are underrepresented, etc. So the last board member not only can't be chosen on merit, they basically have to be ordered from a catalog of people whose function is to fit into whatever weird shaped box is formed by the composition of the existing board members. And if anyone leaves they either have to be replaced by someone of the same gender, race, religion and age or you have to discharge other existing board members and reconstitute the board.

[netheril96]

In practice, no one (except Asians themselves) cares if Asians are underrepresented, only when they are overrepresented.

[hueving]

> I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people who object to this are sexists.

What? You point out the problems with how dumb this law is and then turn around and accuse anyone of objecting to it being a sexist?

[kwxza]

I think he meant that a potential chilling effect on discussion of such regulation is the likelihood that objectors would be labelled as sexist, thus being ignored as opposed to having their points debated upon their merit.

[repolfx]

He didn't say that though, and it wasn't a complex sentence.

Logically speaking it's the other way around. People who are for this law are sexists (they want discrimination on the basis of sex) and the people against it are the non-sexists (appoint purely on merit). Obviously it will be inverted in many discussions: Orwell didn't invent the term doublespeak for no reason.

[roenxi]

kwxza is correct. Obviously I'm not using the word according to its dictionary definition, but I'm in good company using it to mean "not in the best interests of females". In practice, the meaning of the word is being broadened by activists.

[throwaway00991]

Board members don't represent the public. In the U.S., they are elected by, and represent the shareholders. Evidently now for half the seats, the shareholders can elect whoever they want, as long as they identify as a woman.

[azinman2]

It’s a bold move, and I don’t know that I think it’s the right way to do things. That said, it should start to break down glass ceilings and likely lead to behavior changes by adding female perspectives into the mix. It’ll probably also trickle down in hiring practices and possibly even product changes that are less male-focused.

I’d prefer it if women could achieve this on their own because they’re good and deserve it, but so far society seems to be stagnating... and with the recent Kavanaugh hearing and what Trump says and who he backs, I fear women’s rights are in danger and role is receding. I’m very curious to see how this plays out and what meaningful changes (if any) come from it.