California Becomes 1st State To Require Women On Corporate Boards

[TuringMachine]

California Governor Jerry Brown just signed this law to require women on the boards of publicly traded companies. 

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/01/653318005/california-becomes-1st-state-to-require-women-on-corporate-boards

Quite the juxtaposition from the kavanaugh shit.

[GreyhoundFan]

It's about damned time.

[fraurosena]

I’m going to throw this out there, knowing that many of you will not agree with me, but I feel rather strongly about this.

This law is terrible. 

A person shouldn’t ever be appointed to any position whatsoever based on their gender. They should not be appointed based on their ethnicity. They should not be appointed based on their religion. They should not be appointed based on their age.

No one should be appointed based on anything other than their merits.

Anything else is discrimination, the very thing these kinds of laws are supposed to prevent. If anything, it’s doing women a disservice, because they could easily be considered the ‘token female’, who does not need to be taken seriously, and who’s opinions can therefore be dismissed.

If you really want to prevent discrimination, a law requiring companies to proove they chose the candidate with the best merits is the way to go. 

Everybody is equal.

Gender, race, religion or age doesn’t matter. And that includes white men, despite the fact that they’ve been in positions of priviledge for so long.

[AmazonGrace]

Quote

If you really want to prevent discrimination, a law requiring companies to proove they chose the candidate with the best merits is the way to go. 

How would such a law be enforced? Best merits are always a somewhat subjective concept and we have already seen that companies who want to hire white men (people who only vote for white men etc.) will always manage to justify why those white men deserve it the most.

[fraurosena]

3 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

How would such a law be enforced? Best merits are always a somewhat subjective concept and we have already seen that companies who want to hire white men (people who only vote for white men etc.) will always manage to justify why those white men deserve it the most.

It won't be an easy thing to do, I agree. But based on their cv's, experience, etc, they can do a lot to show why one candidate is better than another. Is that fail proof? No, it isn't. But it's a start.

This kind of thing is not going to be fixed easily. I won't pretend to have the answers on precisely how to do it. I just don't believe it's a good thing for anyone involved to demand a certain amount of women be appointed. It's rather ironic, if you think about it, because essentially what you're (general you) doing is exactly the thing you are supposedly trying to end: discrimination based on gender. 

The mindset of people has to change. That's not something that will be done overnight. But where there's a will, there's a way.

[GreyhoundFan]

While it's a great idea to be gender blind on these appointments and appoint solely on resume/experience is that the people in charge (generally men) can write the requirements to be whatever they want. And, guess what, they'll write them to ensure no (or few) women qualify.

Many years ago, I worked in my dream job. A new general manager came in. He couldn't fire everyone because of the way the positions were created, so he had everyone's position descriptions changed so the incumbents were no longer eligible for their own jobs. This is the kind of crap that happens far too often.

Unfortunately, self-policing doesn't go far in corporate America. Feet have to be held to flames.

[fraurosena]

 

52 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Unfortunately, self-policing doesn't go far in corporate America. Feet have to be held to flames.

I wholeheartedly agree. I'm most certainly not advocating for self-policing. That rarely works. Although I am a firm believer in the inherent good in people, there needs to be an incentive for change, otherwise nothing will happen. Why would it?

I just wish that the incentive, that law if you will, were not also propagating discrimination.