While I think using women applicants and hires as a proxy for a healthy company culture that welcomes diversity, I can't think of anything quite as simple, meas

While I think using women applicants and hires as a proxy for a healthy company culture that welcomes diversity, I can't think of anything quite as simple, measurable or elegant as measuring the number of women applicants. Can you? Even before you get to the point of hire, you still have to advertise for the position. If you have the word "ninja" in there or only work through existing networks, you'll obviously get a skewed applicant pool. So really, these kinds of suggestions can help you increase the overall quality of hires. Not sure why people think this is discrimination when it's actually rather elitist.