The question certain people here don't ask: By which other means would you ensure that women get an equal representation?
And I mean measures you can actually implement and not some hand-waving gesture which magically conjures one non-existant driving force or other.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
And it's ridiculous of you to assume that the choice is definitely between totally inept (or gay or psychotic or even Muslim) on the one hand and totally perfect on the other. You're turning yourself into a pretzel trying to "win" this one, probably because you're only arguing with straw men you've set up yourself with Cain's eager help. Get a grip. You're right--it'd be absurd to promote a burger-flipping highschooler to a board member of McDonald's; you're wrong--no-one is actually demanding that, saying it, or even insinuating it anywhere outside of your mind-castle. The proposal referenced in the OP is utterly misguided, but so's the bizarre tack you've taken in this discussion.Originally Posted by Loki
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
That's STILL at the heart of the problem, even with this proposal. There's only so much you can do to change behaviour, even if there had been more women in these businesses to begin with. I'm not sure if you'd end up with an influx of Thatcher-clones or Playmates to replace the assassinated old men
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Well, we had this discussion here in Germany several years ago and the government wanted to implement some laws requiring affirmative action.
The industry gave a mighty hue and cry and promised that they would totally change things on their own if we only left them alone. So our government left them alone.
Guess how much actually happened?
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
What is equal?
That could actually be argued about. However, a representation in the single digits is certainly anything but equal.
I mean, you don't always need to know what is exactly "right" to know that something is definitely wrong.
Let me put another example out there: Our German primary schools. They're an absolute bastion of women. 10 women to 1 man are a high ratio at any given primary school here. While, again, you can argue about what ratio would be adequate, you certainly can say that 10:1 isn't.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
I certainly see your point; its not important to define specifics to see a problem. However, I'm much more wary about defining a solution (such as mandated affirmative action here) based on numbers that may not be consistent enough to warrant such a measure. Ultimately, sexes in jobs is still highly cultural depending on the occupation - you listed elementary teachers, and I'm sure engineering has something of a similar problem.
It's not only cultural, though. I mean, the other types of schools beyond primary don't have that type of problem.
One big difference: They're paid better right from the start.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Funny, might be some cultural differences here. I didn't really begin having male teachers well into high school, and then it became more gradual. It hasn't been until the college level that I've had a majority of male professors at all.
Also, sorry, but who's paid better? Elementary teachers? Engineers? How does that affect a sex split?
Highschool teachers are paid better than primary school teachers. Both have to go to university and study an equally long time.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Gotcha.
Uhm, why do we want to ensure that women are equally represented in a specific job? It doesn't bother me that the majority of, say, dental hygienists are female. Who cares? I also don't care that the majority of truck drivers are male.
Board positions need to be equal opportunity, no question, but don't need to reflect the demographics of society as a whole.
What would a good test be for equality of opportunity?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Maybe a male to female ratio smaller than 10? Just throwing that out there...
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Actually, no. There are plenty of professions equally open to men and women that just have a preponderance of one or the other. There's no simple metric for equality of opportunity. To be honest, the way it's enforced today is to have laws on the books guaranteeing freedom from discrimination in the workplace, and employees have recourse to sue in cases of egregious misconduct.
There are more detailed ways to look at it - look at career paths, proportions of women in specific kinds of position over time, that sorta thing. It's very fuzzy and open to a lot of interpretation, though, and I think it's hard for government policy to effectively control it.
Yes, wiggin. And our government allowed our industry to rectify the situation by themselves. Strangely enough, absolutely nothing changed at all.
It's like letting the fox guard the henhouse - there will be no change without some form of external pressure.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Where do you think you can pull 40% from? Mid-air?
The idea of putting a quota on the top is ludicrous, how about addressing the problems (if there are any) below?
The vague murmurings I've heard in Sweden lead me to believe that this sort of policy is seen as a way to motivate companies to fix whatever problems there may exist "below", by actually making "unequal" representation a problem for them.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
And if the problem isn't with the company? What if it's with the labor pool, or the schools, or the parents of the current generation of workers, or what if there wasn't really a problem until you invented one? SOL?
You're assuming that there's some fundamental problem with the current situation. I think it would be great if more women were on corporate boards, but I'm not particularly concerned if there aren't - provided such ratios come about through a process based on merit.
You are begging the question. You are approaching this as a problem with how industry functions, instead of being open to the possibility that some jobs are more appealing, on the whole, to certain demographics. Like wiggin pointed out, there are jobs that have historically been dominated by certain genders. Instead of assuming this is caused by inequity in the hiring process, why not be open to the possibility that there may be other factors in play.
Shhh...that doesn't fit The Narrative.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6c_dinY3fM
Brevior saltare cum deformibus viris est vita
Those would be some reasons why I see this as being a misguided intervention
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
The profit motive. Private firms already are increasing representation of females at senior levels.
The more important question to answer is why there are so few?
See the situation is very clear. Can environment influence things? Sure of course.
However when you say that the environment (culture, race, gender whatever) determined the outcome you can not acknowledge success. Without failure you can not have success. Without losers you cannot have winners. What liberals want is a world of sad grey dreariness where everyone is the same. Equality of outcome regardless of effort. And that is the most unequal thing of all.
That's Germany being the European outlier I mentioned earlier. Germans have different cultural ideas toward early education, especially compulsory kindergarten (IIRC). And if elementary teachers are paid less, while dominated by women, that's a cyclical problem that needs some external push for change.
I'm old enough to remember when men couldn't be paid to be teachers, literally. Men weren't paid a decent teacher salary until getting into high school level, and even then it was advanced math/chemistry/science classes. But most university professors were male. The same held true in healthcare, when literally all nurses were women, and all physicians were men. But that was during the era when gender-specific careers reflected a culture when men were "heads of household" and main income earners.
Working women mostly fell into two categories: married or un-married. Teachers, nurses, 'secretaries', 'stewardesses', etc...those were considered mid-skill and temporary jobs, something done while young and single, until marriage and family took them out of the work force. Plenty has changed since then, thankfully, and that included men being elementary teachers, nurses, 'executive assistants' and 'flight attendants'. In part because gender norms weren't so stereotyped, but ALSO because those fields began to pay better, and pay more, as they became higher-skilled careers.
Modern challenges meant getting young girls interested in the math/chemistry/science classes, and becoming physicians, chemists, engineers, etc. That's worked hugely well in the last couple of decades. Med schools, law schools, engineering and technology saw explosions in female applicants. Men could be professionals in areas once dominated by females, and expect a decent income. Some of those "quotas" may have been internal and self-defined by academia, but an external pressure was present.
...and yet, GGT, there's still a disproportionate number of male engineers, physicists, and mathematicians being turned out every year. Is this discrimination? I doubt it - there are gender variations within engineering ('harder' engineering tending to attract far fewer women) and the sciences (lots of female biologists out there). It's a matter of preference, probably, combined with a whole host of other complex factors that have nothing to do with systematic discrimination against women. Should we set up a quota for, say, tenure track faculty in mathematics because there aren't enough women? Should we threaten to withhold funding from universities that don't have 40% female math professors? Of course not! Why the difference for corporate boards?
I find it the height of absurdity that when there aren't a preponderance of women in a profession, people raise a cry of discrimination and unequal treatment, but they couldn't care less when it's the opposite. Women are about 95% of childcare workers in the US, 82% of elementary and middle school teachers, 81% of social workers, 73% of health services managers, 71% of tax preparers, 67% of psychologists, 91% of registered nurses, 88% of nursing/home health aides, 67% of customer service reps, 60% of accountants and auditors, 91% of medical assistants, etc. Any number of these are decent professions with decent wages. They are dominated by women for a whole host of reasons but I would argue that with the possible exception of childcare, it's not because of discrimination against men. I wouldn't dream of suggesting that 40% of all of these jobs should be guaranteed for men.
Such a half-empty glass viewpoint; it reeks of the old can't have light without shadow argument. However, you seem to view success as a universal zero-sum game. Obviously there are winners and losers in many situations, but arguing that all situations result in inequality is a terribly limited and flawed outlook on the world. In regards to environment, noone said it determined decisions. Environment is the context needed to understand why something happened, not a tool to bludgeon personal responsibility out of the equation.
Yes, and those factors are largely caused by the industry themselves.
Huge working hours? Male-dominated decision and discussion processes? Having (or wanting to have) a family as a negative factor?
As long as those factors are in place, it is and will stay a male-dominated industry. It's self-reinforcing. And with all self-reinforcing processes, you'll need some external force to break the cycle.
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
wiggin, I thought we'd agreed this wasn't about systematic discrimination against women? Hasn't everyone posting said quotas for women in boardrooms is a bad idea?
I have no idea why the EU's justice minister is proposing this, unless it's to get more women in positions of power by using threats of a mandate. Those are political moves, but the EU isn't all of Europe, and Europe is different than the US. So...I decided to discuss the socio-cultural differences and gender stereotypes as part of those 'preferences and complex factors'....that don't land women in corporate boardrooms.
Using your examples of labor force sectors dominated by women, the hue and cry doesn't come as "discrimination against men", but it does translate into complaints about wages that don't reflect the importance of the job. Like childcare workers or nursing/home health aides. Single head of household in those jobs are among the working poor, even though they're caring for our most vulnerable populations---children, elderly, infirm. If all those jobs were dominated by men, past history would suggest their pay would be higher. Especially since women still earn 0.75 for every dollar a man earns.
When higher wages reflect value and priority, it attracts both men and women. When el-ed teachers began to make more money, more men became el-ed teachers. When nursing was recognized as a high skill profession with higher pay, more men became RNs. When a country like Finland holds their teachers and care-providers in high esteem, and pays accordingly, they get high quality teachers and well educated kids. And I don't buy the argument that men aren't drawn to childcare or the 'helping professions' because they're not wired that way, any more than I buy the argument that women aren't drawn to hard science or corporate leadership 'because they're not wired that way'.
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