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Are gender quotas good for business?

economist.com

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Re: Are gender quotas good for business?

#81
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't define gender disparities as a problem to begin with, so arguments of the form "but the problem is big so it's OK if the actions are big" have no weight with me. What remains is that the word "diversity" doesn't mean diversity. It means focusing on getting women into positions of wealth and power - which you appear to be agreeing with me about, but for you it's an "ends justify the means" situation whereas…

If diversity advocates cared about diversity they'd attack all gender disparities with equal vigour because it'd be the disparity itself they care about Yeah, to me this makes no sense. It's like saying that if you care about infant hungriness, you have to help with equal vigor both those starving in war-ridden areas and those in wealthy neighborhoods whose parents occasionally forget to give lunch money. Or that if…

Picking a natural effect that is very widespread, defining the "badness" of it as being measured by money and power, and then only caring about the instances where there is money and power to be gained quite obviously opens up people to charges of hypocrisy - there is no way to tell the difference between such diversity advocates and people who don't care about diversity at all.

Look at it this way. I make the charge that so-called "diversity advocates" don't care about diversity, that it's not a matter of prioritisation - gender is just a smokescreen. I posit they could achieve 100% female boards but then they'd stop. They wouldn't go on to try and tackle the dominance of women in teaching because they never cared about diversity to begin with: just money and power.

What evidence or arguments do you have that could convince bystanders I'm wrong? There are none. The behaviour we observe can be explained in both a complex way (yours) and a simple way (mine), so Occam's Razor applies.

Re: Are gender quotas good for business?

#82

Before the comments go too far down a rabbit-hole, I encourage everyone to respond to the article instead of answering the question in the headline. The article is talking about boards, not employees, and states that there is no causation proven, despite some correlations found in Europe after they required quotas on company boards.

I can't see an article, only a paywall.
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