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Your analogy is poor. A better one, if we’re going to stick with childish analogies: You achieve straight A’s for a promised juice box reward, but the teacher

Your analogy is poor. A better one, if we’re going to stick with childish analogies: You achieve straight A’s for a promised juice box reward, but the teacher refuses to give it to you because you’re a boy, and too many other boys got A’s in the past.

Swenrekcah 4y ago
I understand your frustration because there really is the sentiment among some people today that “privileged” [1] people should be punished for the crimes of their ancestors. However a law that says that the board of a large enough company can’t be all male (and then also not all female) is actually not the stupidest idea. It should absolutely be considered a temporary stop-gap and automatically revoked as soon as some threshold of women on boards is achieved, but it actually is sometimes necessary to give people a little kick in the butt to get things going. I don’t live in California so I don’t know the specifics of this law, just saying that the idea in general is not as terrible as some of the bad woke stuff. [1] I say privileged in quotes because usually it’s enough that people look similar to people that are or have been privileged.
- teakettle42 4y ago
  The explicit harm done to individuals by such a law is not a distant hypothetical; some non-zero number of people were discriminated against on the basis of their gender, by the government, in order to fill a mandatory quota. It doesn’t do those individuals any good if you roll the laws back in a few years.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    > some non-zero number of people were discriminated against on the basis of their gender, by the government, in order to fill a mandatory quota. Your assumption is that board seats are being allocated to their rightful owners today, and this law would be a corruption of that. That’s a pretty big assumption. What rooms are you in where the ten most qualified people are _ever_ all male? Even in tech that’s not that common.
    - teakettle42 4y ago
      No, the reality — not my assumption — is that there are a limited number of opportunities and the government mandated that men should be discriminated against when being considered for them.
      - Swenrekcah 4y ago
        I get it, I’m a man and this does me no favours. But it is also the reality that these seats aren’t really filled based on pure merit. It’s mostly (or at least a real prerequisite) a question if you belong to the right “club”. These laws expand the club a bit which I think is a good thing. I agree that the idea that decision making will be better simply because there are women is suspect.
    - belorn 4y ago
      Looking at gender segregation here in Sweden, there are many class rooms where all the ten most qualified people are of the same gender. There are simply just many class rooms that have higher gender segregation than 90%, and many are practically single sex from the simple fact that all the students are of the same gender (teacher included). Many profession are also above the 90% segregation line, and most of them are women dominated professions. Most of those work places will have rooms where ten most qualified people are of the same gender. Most of those work places also have women dominating from the top. Tech is actually pretty much in the average in terms of gender segregation, at around 70%.
    - kepler1 4y ago
      "Rightful owners"? Wow, I really hope you're not in any position of authority.

Swenrekcah 4y ago

I understand your frustration because there really is the sentiment among some people today that “privileged” [1] people should be punished for the crimes of their ancestors. However a law that says that the board of a large enough company can’t be all male (and then also not all female) is actually not the stupidest idea. It should absolutely be considered a temporary stop-gap and automatically revoked as soon as some threshold of women on boards is achieved, but it actually is sometimes necessary to give people a little kick in the butt to get things going. I don’t live in California so I don’t know the specifics of this law, just saying that the idea in general is not as terrible as some of the bad woke stuff. [1] I say privileged in quotes because usually it’s enough that people look similar to people that are or have been privileged.

teakettle42 4y ago
The explicit harm done to individuals by such a law is not a distant hypothetical; some non-zero number of people were discriminated against on the basis of their gender, by the government, in order to fill a mandatory quota. It doesn’t do those individuals any good if you roll the laws back in a few years.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  > some non-zero number of people were discriminated against on the basis of their gender, by the government, in order to fill a mandatory quota. Your assumption is that board seats are being allocated to their rightful owners today, and this law would be a corruption of that. That’s a pretty big assumption. What rooms are you in where the ten most qualified people are _ever_ all male? Even in tech that’s not that common.
  - teakettle42 4y ago
    No, the reality — not my assumption — is that there are a limited number of opportunities and the government mandated that men should be discriminated against when being considered for them.
    - Swenrekcah 4y ago
      I get it, I’m a man and this does me no favours. But it is also the reality that these seats aren’t really filled based on pure merit. It’s mostly (or at least a real prerequisite) a question if you belong to the right “club”. These laws expand the club a bit which I think is a good thing. I agree that the idea that decision making will be better simply because there are women is suspect.
  - belorn 4y ago
    Looking at gender segregation here in Sweden, there are many class rooms where all the ten most qualified people are of the same gender. There are simply just many class rooms that have higher gender segregation than 90%, and many are practically single sex from the simple fact that all the students are of the same gender (teacher included). Many profession are also above the 90% segregation line, and most of them are women dominated professions. Most of those work places will have rooms where ten most qualified people are of the same gender. Most of those work places also have women dominating from the top. Tech is actually pretty much in the average in terms of gender segregation, at around 70%.
  - kepler1 4y ago
    "Rightful owners"? Wow, I really hope you're not in any position of authority.