[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.