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I love the idea that there is a scarcity of "golden skirts" that make this too hard. It presupposes that the current male members are all "golden trousers", the

I love the idea that there is a scarcity of "golden skirts" that make this too hard. It presupposes that the current male members are all "golden trousers", the cream of the crop, the best of the best. I've met many many board members over the years and they are often very unimpressive. I'm sure we can find some equally unimpressive women to replace them! Better still anyone with even a modicum of talent would do!

dijit 8y ago
I have a different take; If we suppose a meritocratic hiring process is the best way forward, and that girls are equal to boys (and only considering those genders (if we surmise that there are more)): Then, if we take the stance that there has been historic bias against girls then it leads to them not having the experience to be in the same category as boys. It's not about "all guys being good", it's that historically girls have not necessarily had the same opportunity to gain experience and learn. (Except for the most dedicated or those who went to shops that did not practice any kind of discrimination). This leads to a small pot of experienced girls but a large pot of experienced guys. If you hire "the most qualified candidate" you'll end up with mostly guys because guys have had the opportunity to work unfettered, and if you have a quota to hire more women and want someone experienced, then you're competing against many in a small pool of experienced women. -- EDIT: I should add that I haven't read the article; but the above is a topic I think about often in the context of discrimination and its role in the future. I don't believe in hiring quotas, I believe the problem should be fixed at its root- But this is not the current topic- and I would kindly ask those who downvote me to argue their points if they wish me to be more understanding.
- kraigie 8y ago
  There are much better options than quotas, but that doesn't make them inherently bad. The question is are they an improvement over the current system or not? However they should be at most a stop gap solution, a truly diverse system would make it impossible to know the race and gender of your workers, so implicit basis would be impossible. Or maybe we could train a neural net to have no implicit bias.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
"I've met many many board members over the years and they are often very unimpressive." This is an extremely difficult thing to assess frankly. There are so many reasons for board members. Often they could be from a family fund. Maybe they are from an institutional investor who own a lot of share. They are not there to provide strategic guidance, rather just to sit there and keep an eye on things. They may be simply there as an 'extra head' for another party, like the CEO who wants to keep the power. And sometimes they're there because they have deep networks that you might not know about. Instead of forcing women on boards, they should try to convince companies that having female board members is a good thing, maybe provide some data, and then create some networks for hiring.
- daleharvey 8y ago
  "maybe we should just tell the people that benefit from the sexism that the sexism is bad, surely they will stop"
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    Well, your project, PouchDB has 20 'contributors' listed on Github, it would seem all but one are male. Give or take maybe one. So until your own project isn't blatantly gender biased, maybe you should refrain from waiving the 'sexism' card to broadly. Because I'll gather your probably not trying to 'oppress women' over there, rather, there are any number of other more nuanced and complex reasons for the absence of female contributors. There are many reasons boards are mostly male, and most of it is systematic. They're no more trying to 'keep women off boards' than you're trying to stop women from making contributions to open source. Approaching boards with information, and especially access to women's business networks where boards can find qualified women has actually worked in other areas (Finland) and it's a considerably more responsible approach. (Although in Finland there is mandating as well). FYI PouchDB is amazing, by the way.
    - daleharvey 8y ago
      The reasons that boards (and OSS projects) systematically exclude women ... is what sexism is.

dijit 8y ago

I have a different take; If we suppose a meritocratic hiring process is the best way forward, and that girls are equal to boys (and only considering those genders (if we surmise that there are more)): Then, if we take the stance that there has been historic bias against girls then it leads to them not having the experience to be in the same category as boys. It's not about "all guys being good", it's that historically girls have not necessarily had the same opportunity to gain experience and learn. (Except for the most dedicated or those who went to shops that did not practice any kind of discrimination). This leads to a small pot of experienced girls but a large pot of experienced guys. If you hire "the most qualified candidate" you'll end up with mostly guys because guys have had the opportunity to work unfettered, and if you have a quota to hire more women and want someone experienced, then you're competing against many in a small pool of experienced women. -- EDIT: I should add that I haven't read the article; but the above is a topic I think about often in the context of discrimination and its role in the future. I don't believe in hiring quotas, I believe the problem should be fixed at its root- But this is not the current topic- and I would kindly ask those who downvote me to argue their points if they wish me to be more understanding.

kraigie 8y ago
There are much better options than quotas, but that doesn't make them inherently bad. The question is are they an improvement over the current system or not? However they should be at most a stop gap solution, a truly diverse system would make it impossible to know the race and gender of your workers, so implicit basis would be impossible. Or maybe we could train a neural net to have no implicit bias.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

"I've met many many board members over the years and they are often very unimpressive." This is an extremely difficult thing to assess frankly. There are so many reasons for board members. Often they could be from a family fund. Maybe they are from an institutional investor who own a lot of share. They are not there to provide strategic guidance, rather just to sit there and keep an eye on things. They may be simply there as an 'extra head' for another party, like the CEO who wants to keep the power. And sometimes they're there because they have deep networks that you might not know about. Instead of forcing women on boards, they should try to convince companies that having female board members is a good thing, maybe provide some data, and then create some networks for hiring.

daleharvey 8y ago
"maybe we should just tell the people that benefit from the sexism that the sexism is bad, surely they will stop"
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Well, your project, PouchDB has 20 'contributors' listed on Github, it would seem all but one are male. Give or take maybe one. So until your own project isn't blatantly gender biased, maybe you should refrain from waiving the 'sexism' card to broadly. Because I'll gather your probably not trying to 'oppress women' over there, rather, there are any number of other more nuanced and complex reasons for the absence of female contributors. There are many reasons boards are mostly male, and most of it is systematic. They're no more trying to 'keep women off boards' than you're trying to stop women from making contributions to open source. Approaching boards with information, and especially access to women's business networks where boards can find qualified women has actually worked in other areas (Finland) and it's a considerably more responsible approach. (Although in Finland there is mandating as well). FYI PouchDB is amazing, by the way.
  - daleharvey 8y ago
    The reasons that boards (and OSS projects) systematically exclude women ... is what sexism is.