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California state law mandates female board directors by 2019

37 points by mrleiter 8y ago

alexandernst 8y ago
I cant wait to see a law requiring hospitals to have 50% male nurses. Because equality!</sarcasm>
mlindner 8y ago
Well this won't stand court challenges hopefully. It's dreadful that they ever passed this law. It's demeaning to women and simply will make people think that any woman on a board of directors is there for the sake of being the token woman to fulfill the requirements of the law. EEOC: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm > The law forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment. Even if they argue a loophole "directors aren't employees thus aren't subject to discrimination law" then that will simply result in companies outside California (and considering most corporations are registered as Delaware C-Corporation, that's most of them) openly legally discriminating in selection of board members.
- gammateam 8y ago
  This law was about symbolism, the Governor says so himself. The bill passed the House and Senate, and was signed by the Governor. His signing was purely symbolic and is aware of the serious legal concerns. So although a court challenge would put it on shaky ground, it actually might be politically tenuous to pursue the case at all! And plus, the Equal Rights Amendment will nix it anyway (but too bad the 50 year red supreme court will nix that)
  - mlindner 8y ago
    Why are we signing and creating laws purely for symbolism?
stevecalifornia 8y ago
I have lived in California for about 30 years. Yesterday I took my kids to the Barnes and Nobles in San Luis Obispo. The kids section is next to the bathrooms. Inside the bathroom a homeless guy was smoking meth and another was using the sink and paper towels to give himself a bath. On the ride home I noticed that there was literally no less than one homeless guy per block on both sides of the road. It has not always been like this and it's getting worse. This is on top of all the other issues California has. Ridiculous housing prices, horrible schools and a wildly business unfriendly environment, etc. My point is: The governor was working on mandating public companies have female board members instead of the laundry list of catastrophes that are destroying this state. Think about who you vote for this upcoming election in CA.
- beavisthegenius 8y ago
  You're a moron.
  - dang 8y ago
    We've banned this account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - beavisthegenius 8y ago
      Good.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  California has about 25% of the nation's homeless population. It's quite bad and there are complex reasons for it. One contributing factor is the lovely California weather that makes it much less of a hardship to "sleep rough" than it is in most parts of the continental US.
  - bsaul 8y ago
    i cab imagine there are much more lovely weather than in SF, yet it’s the city with the largest number of homeless i’ve ever seen ( and i live in europe).
DoreenMichele 8y ago
This is possibly a duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18109162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18109162
BandaAria 8y ago
Another anti-male law that the left gifts us. Edit: fix spelling
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
I've always considered myself a liberal, but I've become so frustrated by what seems to be passing for "liberal solutions" in the past few years. For example, I believe having more women on boards is a desirable, admirable goal, but this mandate has to be about the dumbest way to accomplish it. It's similar to what I feel about the housing crises in big cities. I'm very much in favor of increasing affordable housing, but things like rent control (coupled with relatively small numbers of government funded affordable housing units) are so probably counter-productive it's laughable.
- TekMol 8y ago
  How is rent control counterproductive?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - vojta_letal 8y ago
    First of all, it does not work. We had it in Prague like a decade ago. I've seen contracts including extra cost of renting keys for as much as the regulated price. Also I guess it could decrease pressure to developers to build new houses since the prices are artificially low.
  - darawk 8y ago
    Rent control disincentivizes construction of new housing, by adding a major regulatory risk to investment in new housing units. First, imagine that you are the owner of a rental building, and the rent control law passes, in let's say SF. You own the building, and as the landlord, you're obligated to pay for things like repairs and general property management. That takes labor. The price of labor (i.e. wages) tends to increase more or less in step with property values. So, now your costs are increasing, but it's illegal for you to raise your rents. The investment you made, with the presumption that you would be able to charge a market rate for rents is now fucked. Now, consider that you are a prospective property developer. Someone thinking about building a new rental building. You're thinking about investing millions of dollars of your own money to do this. But you look at what happened to the last guy, who got fucked by this rent control law, and you think "maybe i'll build elsewhere, or just stick my money in an index fund instead".
francasso 8y ago
Being in the board of directors of a public company requires a certain attitude toward life and a willingness to accept certain trade-offs. I don't see why having a vagina between your legs should give you any preferential treatment by law.
- francasso 8y ago
  Down-voting based on your political views instead of rationally arguing your point just makes it clear how unfit for society you are.
- jcmi 8y ago
  Taking your statement as a legitimate point, I think the issue isn't that having a vagina means you should be treated differently (side point: not all women have vaginas; don't down vote me). In tech we like to think that everything is a meritocracy but we see countless examples where company culture has made it difficult to exist as a woman. Think of the numerous complaints from women working at Uber circa 2016-2017. Or the thousands of high profile #MeToo allegations. Men being in the dominant and default in tech means it's easier to get away with crap like that. Ensuring that women are adequately represented means that type of stuff is harder to get away with. If more equal representation makes workplaces less toxic, then it's worth it for that alone.
  - francasso 8y ago
    All those despicable events are to be opposed and condemned. I'm favorable to chem. castration at the first definitive sentence of sexual assault. But here we are talking about something different. In order to justify this law, you would have to prove that the amount of women in boards of directors is so low mainly because of sexism by men. On that point I'm willing to concede that that is part of the problem in certain cases, but I'm not at all willing to accept that that is the only reason or even the predominant one. It would take a statistical analysis with numbers suggesting a causal connection to convince me.
buboard 8y ago
An essential step in the right direction. If one can use the legal system to grab a board seat, maybe they will stop paying them so much.
torgian 8y ago
ok, so we will waste money on A: token female board members or B: a female board member who is under qualified because the company couldn’t find a better qualified woman to fill the role; when that male candidate had to be passed up because of his gender. Hmm.
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
I was against this for a long time going against meritocracy, fairness and makeing a company weaker. Now I think this is a good idea to kickstart more women into top management, as one reason people want to make a career and see it achievable are role models, which there currently aren't too many. This should be limited to a kickstart period, say 5y.
- cam_l 8y ago
  I got down voted into oblivion on the previous dupe of this post for saying pretty much the same thing with regard to a sunset clause. I think it is a very reasonable idea. The argument that this goes against meritocracy only makes sense if you inherently think men are better at the role. If you think men and women are likely to be equally as good, it makes more sense that men are currently in the privileged position of getting a role that could be filled by a more qualified woman. As an aside, on the dupe, there are 40 posts or so arguing against this move. Literally every positive post was downvoted, none with a single argument in response. There are clearly a few toxic down voters on HN, particularly when it comes to issues of male privilege.
beavisthegenius 8y ago
Everyone who hates this law hates women and you should be ashamed.
NTDF9 8y ago
Isn't this illegal? Gender based employment opportunity?

37 points by mrleiter 8y ago

I cant wait to see a law requiring hospitals to have 50% male nurses. Because equality!</sarcasm>

Well this won't stand court challenges hopefully. It's dreadful that they ever passed this law. It's demeaning to women and simply will make people think that any woman on a board of directors is there for the sake of being the token woman to fulfill the requirements of the law. EEOC: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm > The law forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, and any other term or condition of employment. Even if they argue a loophole "directors aren't employees thus aren't subject to discrimination law" then that will simply result in companies outside California (and considering most corporations are registered as Delaware C-Corporation, that's most of them) openly legally discriminating in selection of board members.

gammateam 8y ago
This law was about symbolism, the Governor says so himself. The bill passed the House and Senate, and was signed by the Governor. His signing was purely symbolic and is aware of the serious legal concerns. So although a court challenge would put it on shaky ground, it actually might be politically tenuous to pursue the case at all! And plus, the Equal Rights Amendment will nix it anyway (but too bad the 50 year red supreme court will nix that)
- mlindner 8y ago
  Why are we signing and creating laws purely for symbolism?

stevecalifornia 8y ago

I have lived in California for about 30 years. Yesterday I took my kids to the Barnes and Nobles in San Luis Obispo. The kids section is next to the bathrooms. Inside the bathroom a homeless guy was smoking meth and another was using the sink and paper towels to give himself a bath. On the ride home I noticed that there was literally no less than one homeless guy per block on both sides of the road. It has not always been like this and it's getting worse. This is on top of all the other issues California has. Ridiculous housing prices, horrible schools and a wildly business unfriendly environment, etc. My point is: The governor was working on mandating public companies have female board members instead of the laundry list of catastrophes that are destroying this state. Think about who you vote for this upcoming election in CA.

beavisthegenius 8y ago
You're a moron.
- dang 8y ago
  We've banned this account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - beavisthegenius 8y ago
    Good.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
California has about 25% of the nation's homeless population. It's quite bad and there are complex reasons for it. One contributing factor is the lovely California weather that makes it much less of a hardship to "sleep rough" than it is in most parts of the continental US.
- bsaul 8y ago
  i cab imagine there are much more lovely weather than in SF, yet it’s the city with the largest number of homeless i’ve ever seen ( and i live in europe).

DoreenMichele 8y ago

This is possibly a duplicate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18109162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18109162

BandaAria 8y ago

Another anti-male law that the left gifts us. Edit: fix spelling

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

I've always considered myself a liberal, but I've become so frustrated by what seems to be passing for "liberal solutions" in the past few years. For example, I believe having more women on boards is a desirable, admirable goal, but this mandate has to be about the dumbest way to accomplish it. It's similar to what I feel about the housing crises in big cities. I'm very much in favor of increasing affordable housing, but things like rent control (coupled with relatively small numbers of government funded affordable housing units) are so probably counter-productive it's laughable.

TekMol 8y ago
How is rent control counterproductive?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- vojta_letal 8y ago
  First of all, it does not work. We had it in Prague like a decade ago. I've seen contracts including extra cost of renting keys for as much as the regulated price. Also I guess it could decrease pressure to developers to build new houses since the prices are artificially low.
- darawk 8y ago
  Rent control disincentivizes construction of new housing, by adding a major regulatory risk to investment in new housing units. First, imagine that you are the owner of a rental building, and the rent control law passes, in let's say SF. You own the building, and as the landlord, you're obligated to pay for things like repairs and general property management. That takes labor. The price of labor (i.e. wages) tends to increase more or less in step with property values. So, now your costs are increasing, but it's illegal for you to raise your rents. The investment you made, with the presumption that you would be able to charge a market rate for rents is now fucked. Now, consider that you are a prospective property developer. Someone thinking about building a new rental building. You're thinking about investing millions of dollars of your own money to do this. But you look at what happened to the last guy, who got fucked by this rent control law, and you think "maybe i'll build elsewhere, or just stick my money in an index fund instead".

francasso 8y ago

Being in the board of directors of a public company requires a certain attitude toward life and a willingness to accept certain trade-offs. I don't see why having a vagina between your legs should give you any preferential treatment by law.

francasso 8y ago
Down-voting based on your political views instead of rationally arguing your point just makes it clear how unfit for society you are.
jcmi 8y ago
Taking your statement as a legitimate point, I think the issue isn't that having a vagina means you should be treated differently (side point: not all women have vaginas; don't down vote me). In tech we like to think that everything is a meritocracy but we see countless examples where company culture has made it difficult to exist as a woman. Think of the numerous complaints from women working at Uber circa 2016-2017. Or the thousands of high profile #MeToo allegations. Men being in the dominant and default in tech means it's easier to get away with crap like that. Ensuring that women are adequately represented means that type of stuff is harder to get away with. If more equal representation makes workplaces less toxic, then it's worth it for that alone.
- francasso 8y ago
  All those despicable events are to be opposed and condemned. I'm favorable to chem. castration at the first definitive sentence of sexual assault. But here we are talking about something different. In order to justify this law, you would have to prove that the amount of women in boards of directors is so low mainly because of sexism by men. On that point I'm willing to concede that that is part of the problem in certain cases, but I'm not at all willing to accept that that is the only reason or even the predominant one. It would take a statistical analysis with numbers suggesting a causal connection to convince me.

buboard 8y ago

An essential step in the right direction. If one can use the legal system to grab a board seat, maybe they will stop paying them so much.

torgian 8y ago

ok, so we will waste money on A: token female board members or B: a female board member who is under qualified because the company couldn’t find a better qualified woman to fill the role; when that male candidate had to be passed up because of his gender. Hmm.

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

I was against this for a long time going against meritocracy, fairness and makeing a company weaker. Now I think this is a good idea to kickstart more women into top management, as one reason people want to make a career and see it achievable are role models, which there currently aren't too many. This should be limited to a kickstart period, say 5y.

cam_l 8y ago
I got down voted into oblivion on the previous dupe of this post for saying pretty much the same thing with regard to a sunset clause. I think it is a very reasonable idea. The argument that this goes against meritocracy only makes sense if you inherently think men are better at the role. If you think men and women are likely to be equally as good, it makes more sense that men are currently in the privileged position of getting a role that could be filled by a more qualified woman. As an aside, on the dupe, there are 40 posts or so arguing against this move. Literally every positive post was downvoted, none with a single argument in response. There are clearly a few toxic down voters on HN, particularly when it comes to issues of male privilege.

beavisthegenius 8y ago

Everyone who hates this law hates women and you should be ashamed.

NTDF9 8y ago

Isn't this illegal? Gender based employment opportunity?