At the point where 80% of the board room is men, you have to assume qualified women are being passed up at some point and it's not a meritocracy. Additionally, less-qualified men are being promoted over more-qualified women. This is bad for businesses and corporations. If the status-quo was a perfect meritocracy, then we would expect to see (on average) a 50/50 male/female make up of every board room (I am obviously starting with the premise that your sex doesn't affect your ability to lead a company). But we don't see that, so we have to assume that something is going on somewhere in the system that ultimately produces the over-representation of men in the board room. By forcing companies to promote more women, we are forcing companies to figure out what is preventing them from promoting qualified women. It wouldn't be forcing them to choose worse candidates, and it would be stupid of them to do so (note that in the status quo, they are already passing up better female candidates for worse male candidates). It would be forcing them to make the effort to find those qualified women, and if they have to change the culture of the company to make it easier to find those women, then that is a good thing. Another thing to consider is that our society puts different pressures on men and women, steering them towards different career choices. There is a lot of pressure for women to choose "safe" career paths (how many women drop out of college to run a start-up company?), to go into careers that are already dominated by women, and occasionally to choose between having a family and having the career they want. By requiring quotas in the board room, women can feel that their sex will less likely be a handicap as they pursue their career goals. Thus, those pressures society places on women will be lessened. It is true that because of these pressures, the pool of women to choose from is smaller. That is why Germany only imposed a 30% requirement. Hardly onerous. So to sum it up, in my view we don't live in a meritocracy right now, because a meritocracy would produce closer to a 50/50 representation of men and women in the board room. You and I both agree that we want a meritocracy, and I think Germany's 30% requirement brings us closer to that goal. Lastly, I think you and I have a different definition of what feminism is. To me, feminism isn't represented by extremists, aka "man-haters." For me, feminism means "men and women are equal" and that's it. So I'm a feminist.
Uh, no you don't. It might simply be that men are better at that kind of job, maybe because they're more competitive or more willing to sacrifice their family life for the sake of the company. You shouldn't automatically assume sexism in any situation where there's a disparity between the sexes. Remember that men and women are different. If 9 out of 10 nurses are women, it's not because of anti-male biases. Sorry but this is just silly. Aside from the fact that women seem to actually be favoured in the selection process, companies are profit-oriented. How can anyone seriously believe that a company wouldn't want to promote the most qualified employees? Even if we accept that premise, it doesn't justify the implementation of sexist policies that favour women over men. That belief rests on the assumption that men and women are exactly the same, think and feel the same way, want the same things, etc; which is not true. That's nonsense. Affirmative action is the opposite of a meritocratic system. You're one of those feminists I wrote about in my post. You say you want equality but you only really care about women.At the point where 80% of the board room is men, you have to assume qualified women are being passed up at some point and it's not a meritocracy.
Additionally, less-qualified men are being promoted over more-qualified women.
Another thing to consider is that our society puts different pressures on men and women, steering them towards different career choices.
So to sum it up, in my view we don't live in a meritocracy right now, because a meritocracy would produce closer to a 50/50 representation of men and women in the board room.
You and I both agree that we want a meritocracy, and I think Germany's 30% requirement brings us closer to that goal.
Lastly, I think you and I have a different definition of what feminism is. To me, feminism isn't represented by extremists, aka "man-haters." For me, feminism means "men and women are equal" and that's it. So I'm a feminist.
I'd just like to point out that you don't know who I am, what I believe, and your last claim that I only care about women is insulting and stupid, especially considering that I am a man. You need to get off the internet, and realize that in the real world people are not defined by extremist positions.
That's the problem, that I'm not talking about radical feminism (the one that actually plans to reduce the number of men 10% of the total population); just regular, mainstream feminism. If you're a man and a feminist, you're basically supporting your own enslavement. Remember that the choice is not between feminism and misogyny; that's just a false dichotomy that feminists use to keep reasonable men and women from joining the anti-feminist side.
> So to sum it up, in my view we don't live in a meritocracy right now, because a meritocracy would produce closer to a 50/50 representation of men and women in the board room. Grendel has a point here. There's no way a perfect equal-opportunity society would lead to a 50-50 split. It's unreasonable enough to say this to qualify you as "that kind of feminist". If you want we can talk about this, but it would be more productive it you would look for the facts yourself. There is research that shows that in this kind of discussions the more arguments the other party offers, the more convinced people become they are right. But just in case it helps: - men and women have different _preferences_. Not capabilities, research actually goes towards almost identical capabilities, but they want wildly different things from life. Of course, you can go and say it's society's blame that people are different, which is another can of worms I'm not really keen to open, but fact is - they do want different things. So they make different choices. And men's choices tend to lead to the boardroom more often than women's. Now you could go and say that's nor right and "educate" both men and women and teach them what to want - personally I don't find this idea particularly attractive - but we're talking current facts here. - and speaking of preferences, women have children. There is absolutely no way you can say equal opportunity would lead to 50-50 split, when women have the children. Again, I'm not saying about how society might "fix" this "problem" - again I see it as a preference issue and as a matter of principle I don't think that it's a good idea to have the society teach people what to want. But fact is, women get pregnant and tend to want to bond and raise their children at least for a while, which on average HAS to have some impact on final performance. So you see, you are "that kind of feminist", looking beyond reason toward an ideal and trying to twist the facts to fit that ideal. I really wouldn't want to be in your shoes right now, having to chose between accepting this truth and finding some shred of maybe falsehood in the other guy's comment and convincing myself that it makes the whole argument invalid.
I would argue that this is the "social pressures" I mentioned. When all your life you see women do a certain set of things and men do a different set of things, it is hard to go against the norm. Yes, and in America today they don't get maternity leave. If women (and men) were guaranteed adequate parental leave, then this wouldn't be a problem. After the first few months of the child's life, if there was affordable child care for every child, then parents wouldn't have to worry about having one parent stay home, and both women and men could return to their careers with minimal disruption. I make no apologies for my belief that women and men are equal. That's what I believe, that's what the women I've talked to believe, and so I form my opinions from that starting point. If you guys think men are inherently better at having a career, that it isn't just normalized discrimination and an unwillingness to accommodate women's healthcare that has existed in our culture for centuries, then we aren't going to come to an agreement.men and women have different preferences
women have children
See? This is what I was talking about. I _can't_ change your mind. Not that I don't have the arguments (I do, plenty), but each argument I use gets turn jiu jitsu style and supports your world view. I can (and will) continue to argue for fun, but as far as actually reaching you, I might as well fight a shadow. (http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/, https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Confirmation_bias). Now, as far as arguing for fun goes: > I make no apologies for my belief that women and men are equal. They are equal. I know of no-to-little research that says they have significantly different _capabilities_. What I strongly disapprove is feminism (or however you call it, "society") trying to tell women what to want. That's the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. The first, when confronted with an obvious imbalance (women in STEM, army, board room) will do its best to lower barriers, including btw with child care which most of Europe has. And surprise surprise, the more health care and government support you have, the more women still stay away from STEM/army/boardroom. It's as if more freedom actually allows them to express their real preferences. Equality of outcome is something I find repugnant, both because I was born in a totalitarian regime and because it insults my sense of justice. And I also find illogical to the point of being insane - I read when I was a child about an archaeologist found chipping away at the corners of a burial chamber, because it did not conform with its calculations. This is the kind of behavior I'm seeing, not honestly trying to find out what the reality is, but shaping reality to conform with a pre-decided idea of equality and to hell with the truth. If as a side-effect it makes lots of people unhappy, too bad, the Equality won!
So then explain to me how two equal things would have different outcomes? If I have two cars, they both are equally good at driving, but one wins 80% of races, then I can assume something is slowing down the other one. A perfectly level race track would mean each car would win 50% of the time (well, actually I guess they would tie, but that's not the point). If I offer a bunch of people a choice between two $5 bills, and people tend to pick the one in my right hand over the one in my left 80% of the time, then I can assume something is influencing them to pick the bill in my right hand. That's where I'm coming from. I don't understand how you can think men and women are equal and then be OK with men "winning" 80% of positions in a board room. The only way a meritocracy could put more men than women in a board room would be if men were better than women at the job. But neither of us agree with that. You also seem to think that requiring a certain portion of women in executive positions means that men would be unfairly discriminated against. I see it the other way around, that men who would have been unfairly promoted would be replaced by women who should have been promoted in the first place. >I_can't_change_your mind Do you see how that can go two ways?
> At the point where 80% of the board room is men, you have to assume qualified women are being passed up at some point and it's not a meritocracy. Good point. But then shouldn't the law require company boards to have at least 30% women and at least 30% men? Because a board with 80% women cannot be a meritocracy.
I wouldn't be opposed to that at all! Although since the under-representation of men isn't a widespread problem, I doubt it would be anything other than symbolic. But you're right, if women are being over-represented, that would also point to a problem.