Gender Quotas (and possibly other stuff.)

MrPudding

Deleted User wrote: »

Following from this, people should be aware that it is already illegal to discriminate against someone based upon their gender. Are there many cases brought? (not a breeze!)



http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2004/en/act/pub/0024/index.html

Well, that's kind of the point, isn't it?

MrP

MrPudding

MrPudding wrote: »

Well, that's kind of the point, isn't it?

MrP

yes.

(I don't understand the question?)

MrPudding

Deleted User wrote: »

yes.

(I don't understand the question?)

What point were you trying to make by referring to existing legislation? I assumed you were trying to say 'look we already have laws that cover this.' My point, by saying 'well, that is kind of the point' is that these existing laws are not working, obviously, typically because they are pretty easy to circumvent. Typically when an employer makes a hiring decision based on a discriminatory factor he, or she, typically, does not announce it as such.

Therefore, as good and well intentioned as the 2004 act is, it is not really that hard to get round.

MrP

recedite

keane2097 wrote: »

Would you mind explaining a little more about how a list system works?

In the polling booth you would be given two lists to pick candidates from, a national list and a local list. One would be the usual constituency one. The other would be a national list. You vote separately for people on both lists. In general the national list contains the "top" candidates from outside your own area. They could be chosen for the list by their party, or they could be a popular independent who got in on the first count last time with surplus votes.

Take for example an independent in my constituency that I normally vote for, Stephen Donnelly. He often appears on TV and has a national profile, and he would normally get in on the first count, but not very many people have the chance to vote for him. If he was on a national list, he might get enough transfer votes to get a few like minded people into office, and then make more of an impact.

Another example, a few years ago in 2007 Michael McDowell of the PDs was a sitting Tanaiste, but lost his seat to the leader of the Greens, John Gormley, who was running in the same constituency. Yet both of them could have got in easily, if people outside Dublin SE had been allowed to vote for them. They were both high profile people, and the Dail would have benefited from having both.
The bigger parties can play the current system to some extent by parachuting a big shot candidate into another area if they think the party already have a safe seat in the actual constituency the candidate lives in.

Its not that different to Peregrinus' suggestion of making the whole country into one big constituency, except that there might be too many on the list in that case. Most of them would be unrecognisable to the voter, because they would be local "small fry" from the other side of the country.

jank

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

And as Norway found out, in the medium to long term, imposing gender quotas is not alone beneficial to the women now having an opportunity to climb the greasy pole, it is also beneficial to the companies themselves, because they had to start implementing hiring procedures which emphasised talent and ability. Not alone did the quality of their boards overall increase, but also the quality of the male members of said boards. So much so that many companies themselves are now advocating the quotas be implemented.

This has been debunked in my previous post.

Fleshing it out...

‘In 2003, a new law required that 40 percent of Norwegian firms’ directors be women – at the time only nine percent of directors were women. We use the pre-quota cross-sectional variation in female board representation to instrument for exogenous changes to corporate boards following the quota. We find that the constraint imposed by the quota caused a significant drop in the stock price at the announcement of the law and a large decline in Tobin’s Q over the following years, consistent with the idea that firms choose boards to maximize value. The quota led to younger and less experienced boards, increases in leverage and acquisitions, and deterioration in operating performance, consistent with less capable boards.’

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1364470

jank

There are many things we could do to reform the political system. Things already mentioned are a national list system, getting rid of multi-seat constituencies, FPTP rather than PR and so on. All these are valid in their own way. Gender quotas however is just a superficial sentiment that will actually have no improvement at all in day to day politics or the running of the country, so why pursue it when their is no end result or net gain when in fact its discriminatory in of itself.

MrPudding

MrPudding wrote: »

What point were you trying to make by referring to existing legislation? I assumed you were trying to say 'look we already have laws that cover this.' My point, by saying 'well, that is kind of the point' is that these existing laws are not working, obviously, typically because they are pretty easy to circumvent. Typically when an employer makes a hiring decision based on a discriminatory factor he, or she, typically, does not announce it as such.

Therefore, as good and well intentioned as the 2004 act is, it is not really that hard to get round.

MrP

Couple of points.

1 - There are existing laws to deal with discrimination. Why are these not working? Why aren't these avenues being pursued? If they're easily circumvented, how come we're not working on them to redefine them and enable them to be enforced. If we cannot define the problem, how can we get problem statistics? (These aren't loaded questions, I don't know the answer.)

2 - Gender quotas prescribe 'positive' discrimination (I think we have agreed on that?) as a solution. However we have legislation which states that discrimination based on gender is illegal. So is support gender quotas in effect visibly pushing for law breaking? (Even if as, you say it is easy to get around)

keane2097

recedite wrote: »

In the polling booth you would be given two lists to pick candidates from, a national list and a local list. One would be the usual constituency one. The other would be a national list. You vote separately for people on both lists. In general the national list contains the "top" candidates from outside your own area. They could be chosen for the list by their party, or they could be a popular independent who got in on the first count last time with surplus votes.

Take for example an independent in my constituency that I normally vote for, Stephen Donnelly. He often appears on TV and has a national profile, and he would normally get in on the first count, but not very many people have the chance to vote for him. If he was on a national list, he might get enough transfer votes to get a few like minded people into office, and then make more of an impact.

Another example, a few years ago in 2007 Michael McDowell of the PDs was a sitting Tanaiste, but lost his seat to the leader of the Greens, John Gormley, who was running in the same constituency. Yet both of them could have got in easily, if people outside Dublin SE had been allowed to vote for them. They were both high profile people, and the Dail would have benefited from having both.
The bigger parties can play the current system to some extent by parachuting a big shot candidate into another area if they think the party already have a safe seat in the actual constituency the candidate lives in.

Its not that different to Peregrinus' suggestion of making the whole country into one big constituency, except that there might be too many on the list in that case. Most of them would be unrecognisable to the voter, because they would be local "small fry" from the other side of the country.

Thank you for that.

Peregrinus

Deleted User wrote: »

. . . Gender quotas prescribe 'positive' discrimination (I think we have agreed on that?) as a solution. However we have legislation which states that discrimination based on gender is illegal. So is support gender quotas in effect visibly pushing for law breaking? (Even if as, you say it is easy to get around)

It's pushing for a change in the law to make gender quotas or other forms of positive discriimination lawful in circumstances where they currently would not be.

Peregrinus

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's pushing for a change in the law to make gender quotas or other forms of positive discriimination lawful in circumstances where they currently would not be.

Ok, so following on from my original post (and the entire reason for this thread) support for gender quotas is support for the removal of gender blindness legislation?

So, hypocritical from an egalitarian viewpoint? Or special pleading in the very least?

Peregrinus

It's not hypocritical. It's arguable that it's special pleading; it depends on what you think is "special". As an egalitarian, you could take the view that we've had equal pay and equal opportunities legislation and practice for a generation now and, while that has acheived a good deal, there is still a persistent gap in the workplace between male and female pay, achievements, etc, and it's now time to try other strategies to see if they are any more effective at closing that gap than legislation requiring gender-blindness has been.

You can also take the view that individualistic egalitarianism is not the only ethical goal that matters here. It may be true that women or ethnic minorities (or whoever) will benefit as a class or as a community if they are better represented in boardrooms, etc, and that this makes improved representation a legitimate goal of public policy. You could also take the view that a company, a school, etc is better off if is more diverse, and has more to contribute to wider society, and that it is legitimate for them to adopt reverse discrimination policies to improve diversity.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

we've had equal pay and equal opportunities legislation and practice for a generation now and, while that has acheived a good deal, there is still a persistent gap in the workplace between male and female pay, achievements, etc, and it's now time to try other strategies to see if they are any more effective at closing that gap..

Show me a situation where a female is doing the same work as a male colleague, and putting in the same hours, with the same qualification, and getting paid less, because you are showing me someone who is just about to win a court case brought by the Equality Commission.

jackofalltrades

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's not hypocritical. It's arguable that it's special pleading; it depends on what you think is "special". As an egalitarian, you could take the view that we've had equal pay and equal opportunities legislation and practice for a generation now and, while that has acheived a good deal, there is still a persistent gap in the workplace between male and female pay, achievements, etc, and it's now time to try other strategies to see if they are any more effective at closing that gap than legislation requiring gender-blindness has been.

According to OECD figures the gender pay gap has narrowed from around 20% in 2003 to 3.5% in 2011.
According to recent NWCI figures the gender pay gap between single men and women is -17%.
That's right single women are out earning single men by 17%.

There isn't a gender pay gap, there's a parental pay gap.
Women take time out of work to look after children, this time out reduces their career chances and future pay prospects.
Men on the other hand are expected to stay in work(and are financially penalised for taking time off) and and be the provider, so their prospects aren't as hindered.
This is the real issue we should be talking about.
And things are only going to change when it's widely considered acceptable for both women and men to stay at home and raise their children.

Quotas when just applied to areas where women are at a disadvantage, increase the options women have while simultaneously reducing the options men have.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Show me a situation where a female is doing the same work as a male colleague, and putting in the same hours, with the same qualification, and getting paid less, because you are showing me someone who is just about to win a court case brought by the Equality Commission.

As jackofalltrades points out, the pay gap isn't between equally-qualified women and men doing the same work and putting in the same hours. Nevertheless there are pay gaps.

What this suggests to me is that the equal pay legislation we have had so far has been pretty good at equalising the pay gap between equally-qualified, equally industrious men and women, but perhaps less effective at enabling people to be equally qualified, or equally industrious. Attitudes to parenting are obviously an issue - women are expected/acculturated to take time out, men are expected/acculturated not to do so, and in both cases this may be suboptimal.

I'm not saying that gender quotas will solve these problems. My point is just that the equal pay legislation we have now, which is highly individualist and immediate and compares this woman and this man, in the situation they are now in, is all very well, but it doesn't ask how this woman and this man came to be in this situation, and how many other women or other men never got to this point.

Peregrinus

Peregrinus wrote: »

I'm not saying that gender quotas will solve these problems. My point is just that the equal pay legislation we have now, which is highly individualist and immediate and compares this woman and this man, in the situation they are now in, is all very well, but it doesn't ask how this woman and this man came to be in this situation, and how many other women or other men never got to this point.

Should it?

Do we have any laws that do anything like this?

magicbastarder

recedite wrote: »

Show me a situation where a female is doing the same work as a male colleague, and putting in the same hours, with the same qualification, and getting paid less, because you are showing me someone who is just about to win a court case brought by the Equality Commission.

or not, considering that people are cagey about admitting what they earn, and very few people in ireland sue their employer for fear of getting a reputation as a troublemaker.

i have heard at least once of companies having a policy where you are not allowed divulge your salary to co-workers. i wonder if that's defensible; it's obviously aimed at preventing pay demands from underpaid workers.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

What this suggests to me is that the equal pay legislation we have had so far has been pretty good at equalising the pay gap between equally-qualified, equally industrious men and women, but perhaps less effective at enabling people to be equally qualified, or equally industrious. Attitudes to parenting are obviously an issue - women are expected/acculturated to take time out, men are expected/acculturated not to do so, and in both cases this may be suboptimal.

Equality between the sexes does not mean sameness. If all women have the opportunity to receive the same pay and career prospects, as is the current situation, then society has achieved full equality and no further laws for positive discrimination are required.
If more women than men choose to devote time to their children, that is their choice*. But the important thing is that those individual women who choose not to, and those individual men who choose to rear their kids must not be discriminated against just because they digressed from the "traditional" role of their sex.

*"Choice" is of course a relative term, because obviously the financial circumstances of the men and women involved, relative to availability/costs of local childcare may well decide matters. But the point is that women are free to further their career, and men are free to stay at home, if that is what they think is the best solution in their own situation.

Peregrinus

Deleted User wrote: »

Should it?

Do we have any laws that do anything like this?

Good quesitions. But once you get to the point of asking therm, it's clear that we are no longer dealing with possible hypocrisy or special pleading.

We do, obviously, have public policies which seek to redress disadvantage. In Northern Ireland for some years now there has been a policy of seeking to increase the employment of Catholics in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. There are those who object to it, but the reasons why it's in place are fairly obvious, and those reasons are compelling enough to ensure enough support to keep the policy in place.

I'm not suggesting that the situation of women in the workforce in Ireland is on all fours with the situation of Catholics in the police in Northern Ireland. In fact, I haven't at any point said that quotas for women would be justified; just that support for them is not necessarily hypocritical, or a case of special pleading. Women are underrepresented in senior management positions, and it's at least worth considering whether the quality of senior management overall would be improved if it was more diverse in its makeup, and whether policies designed to improve diversity would therefore be justified.

Peregrinus

Peregrinus wrote: »

Good quesitions. But once you get to the point of asking therm, it's clear that we are no longer dealing with possible hypocrisy or special pleading.

We do, obviously, have public policies which seek to redress disadvantage. In Northern Ireland for some years now there has been a policy of seeking to increase the employment of Catholics in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. There are those who object to it, but the reasons why it's in place are fairly obvious, and those reasons are compelling enough to ensure enough support to keep the policy in place.

I'm not suggesting that the situation of women in the workforce in Ireland is on all fours with the situation of Catholics in the police in Northern Ireland. In fact, I haven't at any point said that quotas for women would be justified; just that support for them is not necessarily hypocritical, or a case of special pleading. Women are underrepresented in senior management positions, and it's at least worth considering whether the quality of senior management overall would be improved if it was more diverse in its makeup, and whether policies designed to improve diversity would therefore be justified.

Can you please explain this further? I'm not sure that I follow the logic at all.

recedite

What if it is discovered that black people are under represented at senior management level. Would that justify a racist "pro-black person" quota?
IMO its all about equal opportunity, not equal representation. Its about the future, not the past.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

Equality between the sexes does not mean sameness. If all women have the opportunity to receive the same pay and career prospects, as is the current situation, then society has achieved full equality and no further laws for positive discrimination are required.
If more women than men choose to devote time to their children, that is their choice*.

I take your point. But two thoughts occur to me.

The first is that equality at the individual level may not be the only good worth pursuing. It may be the case that society as a whole benefits if certain institutions - parliament, cultural institutions, senior management of industry - are diverse and pluralist in their makup and values. And if that's the case then policies designed to promote diversity, and to improve the representation/participation rates of minority groups, can be justified without any appeal to equality at the individual level.

The truth is that gender quotas and similar are pretty crude. Let's say we think that women or blacks or whoever have had a raw deal in the past and that this leaves them, as a group, not well positioned to compete for boardroom positions, and perhaps not even well positions to acquire the skills and experiences that would enable them to compete for those positions. And let's say that to remedy this we impose a quota of, say, 25% representation for the minority concerned. The individuals who will benefit from this are the ones who are best positions by skills, experience, etc - i.e. the ones who have actually been least disadvantaged by the historic problems that the group as a whole has suffered from. But the justification for the affirmative action is not that it's fair to these individuals. If anything, it's a windfall advantage to the particular people who are appointed, and it's unfortunate for the individual who lose out against them, but we put up with those less-than-fair outcomes because we want to change the culture which has led to entrenched unfairness in the first place. The lack of individual fairness is a price we're willing to pay in order to address the systemic unfairness.

The second point, of course, is that we treat a choice to spend time raising children - a choice that more women are prone to make - as a choice to opt out of the competetiive race to senior management. But I don't see that we have to take that as a given. After all, there was a time when we treated a choice to pursue and academic career as a vocation to celibacy, and academics who married were excluded from competing for fellowships. As long as we assume that it's right and natural that those who want success in the boardroom have to compromise their family lives in the way they currently do, then we are making a choice to disadvantage people who opt to spend time raising children. We should not delude ourselves that this is anything other than a choice.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

What if it is discovered that black people are under represented at senior management level. Would that justify a racist "pro-black person" quota?
IMO its all about equal opportunity, not equal representation. Its about the future, not the past.

You're overlooking the fact that the reason that black people are underrepresented may well be that there isn't equal opportunity, even now. Cultural factors may be operating that preclude or hamper black people from making the choices that will take them to the boardroom, or that disincline boards to appoint black people.

I'm not saying that quotas would necessarily be justified. But it's absurdly simplistic to imagine that, because we have laws forbidding discrimination on racial grounds in employment, that people of all races enjoy equal opportunity. There's abundant evidence throughout the western world that they don't. You might as well argue that because we have laws against assualt, nobody ever goes in fear of being attacked.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

The first is that equality at the individual level may not be the only good worth pursuing. It may be the case that society as a whole benefits if certain institutions - parliament, cultural institutions, senior management of industry - are diverse and pluralist in their makeup and values. And if that's the case then policies designed to promote diversity, and to improve the representation/participation rates of minority groups, can be justified without any appeal to equality at the individual level.

But can they be implemented without any compromise to equality at the individual level?
I understand the "greater good argument" that you are making. As the great Mr. Spock said "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few".
Nevertheless, I am always wary whenever "the few" are required to make sacrifices "for the greater good" without their consent.

jackofalltrades

Peregrinus wrote: »

We do, obviously, have public policies which seek to redress disadvantage. In Northern Ireland for some years now there has been a policy of seeking to increase the employment of Catholics in the Police Service of Northern Ireland. There are those who object to it, but the reasons why it's in place are fairly obvious, and those reasons are compelling enough to ensure enough support to keep the policy in place.

This is one situation where the one significant advantages of quotas significantly outweighed the disadvantages of them.
In this case proportion of Catholics in the PSNI needed to be increase immediately, in order for the community to buy into a police services, which was part of an overall goal of ending decades of violence.

Is there a pressing need for the same immediacy when it comes to redressing the gender imbalance on company boards?

This is what quotas really come down to, getting a result now and to hell with the consequences.
Instead of letting society work it out at a pace that would see the women being promoted based purely on their ability, without the need for quotas.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

But can they be implemented without any compromise to equality at the individual level?
I understand the "greater good argument" that you are making. As the great Mr. Spock said "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few".
Nevertheless, I am always wary whenever "the few" are required to make sacrifices "for the greater good" without their consent.

And so am I. But our justified caution doesn't mean that circumstances can never arise when some kind of affirmative action is acceptable, or even necessary - as the PSNI example shows.

As for compromising equality at the individual level, basically living in human society is one long series of compromises between individual rights and freedoms on the one hand and the common good on the other, isn't it? There isn't any clear, simple and obviously right rule about where the balance between these two needs to be struck; it's a matter of debate.

A very strong preference for individual liberties will drag you towards libertarianism. But even libertarians compromise by insisting on the right (and indeed duty) of the community to institute and enforce the notion of private property. And those who are less libertarian will acknowledge the right and/or duty of the community to advance and uphold social goods other than private property, even where this is not in the interests of particular individuals.

There's a strong tradition in republican political theory (I mean classic republicanism here, not US Republican Party republicanism) which regards class or sectional privilege, the power of vested interests, etc, as an unqualified Bad Thing. In the republican view, having particular groups, however defined, monopolizing or disproportionately controlling power, influence and/or wealth is bad for the republic/the community. Therefore policies aimed at discouraging this are right and necessary. (This is where things like term limits for politicians, a widely-drawn electoral franchise, etc, come from.)

When it comes to equal opportunities, both those whose focus is individual freedom and those whose focus is the common good will approve of, say, universal access to high-quality education, and laws requiring jobs to be filled by open advertisement and competition. But when you reach the limit of what these measures can achieve - and I suggest we are more or less there now - the two groups may tend to diverge, one side favouring affirmative action as being good for the republic, and the other opposing it as being unfair to individuals.

Having, say, 20% of seats in parliament reserved for women is arguably unfair to a man who gets more votes but fails to be elected on account of this quota. It's also arguably unfair to the particular voters who voted for that man. But if you take the view that the main purpose of parlament is not to benefit candidates, or even to benefit individual voters, but to benefit the nation at large, and that it is better equipped to do this if women have a certain critical mass of representation, then you may consider the quota to be justified. The overwhelming dominance of parliament by men may be the outcome of fair, transparent and egalitarian election procedures, but it still represents a particular section of society securing a disproportionate degee of political control or influence, and so is from a republican perspective is a problem which may, and arguably should, be addressed by some kind of affirmative action.

Peregrinus

Peregrinus wrote: »

Having, say, 20% of seats in parliament reserved for women is arguably unfair to a man who gets more votes but fails to be elected on account of this quota. It's also arguably unfair to the particular voters who voted for that man. But if you take the view that the main purpose of parlament is not to benefit candidates, or even to benefit individual voters, but to benefit the nation at large, and that it is better equipped to do this if women have a certain critical mass of representation, then you may consider the quota to be justified. The overwhelming dominance of parliament by men may be the outcome of fair, transparent and egalitarian election procedures, but it still represents a particular section of society securing a disproportionate degee of political control or influence, and so is from a republican perspective is a problem which may, and arguably should, be addressed by some kind of affirmative action.

But is this true? Is it only gender we should enforce quotas on? (special pleading) or should we also look at quotas for differently abled people and other arbitrarily chosen under-represented groupings?

And why might the second part extend to non-electorate (i.e meritocratic) positions?
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/maths-needs-to-factor-in-more-women-1.1913427

Prof Michel Destrade wrote:

I am all in favour of quotas to quickly restore some balance. Some would argue that with a smaller pool of candidates to pick from, the likelihood of hiring mediocre female candidates increases with the imposition of quotas. So what? After all, if men and women are equally talented, they must be equally untalented too, and a balance must also be found in the underperforming subset of mathematicians. In any case, there is now a good body of work available to show gender quotas raise the quality of recruitment and attract more highly qualified women.
Of course imposing quotas is a sensitive issue and is probably not on anybody’s agenda any time soon for science. However, we could put floor requirements in place, ensuring a minimum number of women gets hired or promoted over a given period. Some universities are taking steps in that direction.

keane2097

Deleted User wrote: »

But is this true? Is it only gender we should enforce quotas on? (special pleading) or should we also look at quotas for differently abled people?

And why might the second part extend to non-electorate (i.e meritocratic) positions?
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/maths-needs-to-factor-in-more-women-1.1913427

Did you make an error with the line you bolded from that article?

The one directly after the one you highlighted seems to answer your question.

I am all in favour of quotas to quickly restore some balance. Some would argue that with a smaller pool of candidates to pick from, the likelihood of hiring mediocre female candidates increases with the imposition of quotas. So what? After all, if men and women are equally talented, they must be equally untalented too, and a balance must also be found in the underperforming subset of mathematicians. In any case, there is now a good body of work available to show gender quotas raise the quality of recruitment and attract more highly qualified women.

keane2097

keane2097 wrote: »

Did you make an error with the line you bolded from that article?

The one directly after the one you highlighted seems to answer your question.

Unfortunately he hasn't cited any of these studies which show overall improved recruitment, and what he's written (re:overall improvement) is actually refuted several times in this thread and others that have popped up elsewhere on the topic.

Discussions of Quotas
http://www.mpg.de/1197767/quota_system_downsides?page=1
http://www.academics.com/science/the_drawbacks_of_the_quota_47961.htm

Discussions on Gender Bias & Discrimination in Science - with links to published studies
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/women_science_no_discrimination_says_cornell_study-75984
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/sex_discrimination_go_byebye_gender_differences_math_choice_not_social_pressure_or_ability

Discussion on why Females are under-represented at the top of Math
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math.htm
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math2.htm
(Note: I apologise for the tone & language of both of these articles. However the content is important)

Here's a letter from the Irish Times that might be of interest on the matter too.

Sir, – Prof Nancy Hopkins (December 10th) writes about “unconscious gender bias” at the top in science. I would argue that by far the most notorious example of gender bias in Irish universities is the existence of a number of women’s and gender studies centres, several of which have existed for more than 20 years and which are overwhelmingly staffed by women. According to the US writer Daphne Patai, they are more concerned with political activism than with scholarship and the pursuit of knowledge. They share a common ideology, central to which is the notion that gender is socially constructed and that biology has little or nothing to do with gender; openness to any challenge to this ideology or to criticism appears to be at a minimum. This is all the more extraordinary since science has refuted its central tenet and has shown biology plays an undoubted and perhaps a major role in gender construction.

An example of how the pretensions of gender studies can be exposed occurred in 2012 when the NIKK Nordic Gender Institute was closed. The decision was made after Norwegian state television had broadcast a documentary in which the unscientific character of the NIKK and its research was exposed. The whole enterprise was based on ideology with no basis in evidence. – Yours, etc,

DAVID WALSH,
Maynooth, Co Kildare.

In any case, what he said isn't a full and important statement. Unless we decide that gender now does matter, and as a result, we want more females in science*. Of course opening up extra positions to females will improve the level of qualification of females in the role. That applies to almost all sectors, introduce additional employment & numbers and therefore qualifications increase.

But given that it only focuses on females it ignores the males that it has removed from the equation. We know nothing about the qualifications of the men that applied for positions but were discriminated against based on their gender in order for the quota to be fulfilled.

*To this, I ask why? What's the benefit? Explain to me how it's important to have people who are not the best person for the job working in a job? Why should the electoral issue above (which I can understand) invade science and other meritocratic positions?

Peregrinus

Deleted User wrote: »

But is this true? Is it only gender we should enforce quotas on? (special pleading) or should we also look at quotas for differently abled people and other arbitrarily chosen under-represented groupings?

These are good questions. Another good question would be whether quotas are the particular kind of affirmative action that we should be looking to, or whether there are other affirmative action strategies, which perhaps present less of a conflict with individual egalitarianism, which we should consider.

My point here has never been that we must have gender quotas. It has simply been that calling for gender quotas isn’t necessarily hypocritical, or a case of special pleading. And that you don’t have to approach this issue with the presupposition that individual egalitarianism is the pre-eminent moral good before which all other goods must yield.

Deleted User wrote: »

And why might the second part extend to non-electorate (i.e meritocratic) positions?

Two thoughts:

First, just because a position isn’t elected doesn’t mean that it’s meritocratic. When it comes to senior management positions, in fact, we have abundant evidence that the process isn’t terribly meritocratic - boards of management are highly skewed for both gender and (even more so) social class, and there is no evidence at all that merit is similarly skewed. And there are plenty of studies that show that the networking, interview-based process by which senior management positions tend to be filled is not, despite the genuine best intentions of all concerned, especially meritocratic. Those making the appointments tend to appoint the candidates who are most like themselves. So this operates as a mechanism to entrench established privilege.

Secondly, just because a position isn’t elected doesn’t mean that it has no public importance. In a capitalist society, those who control commerce and industry are enormously powerful, and their choices and actions influence many more people than the shareholders to whom they are - in theory - solely accountable. There is a very legitimate public interest here. If we think it is good for society that Parliament should include the voices of women, ethnic minorities and other traditional “outgroups”, then there’s a very strong case for saying that it would be good for society if other influential institutions were similarly diverse. That doesn’t necessarily justify, e.g., the imposition of gender quotas on the boards of public companies, but it may well justify some public policy (and some regulation) aimed at improving diversity.

recedite

Prof Michel Destrade wrote:

Of course imposing quotas is a sensitive issue and is probably not on anybody’s agenda any time soon for science. However, we could put floor requirements in place, ensuring a minimum number of women gets hired or promoted over a given period. Some universities are taking steps in that direction.

What is a floor requirement, if not a quota that is pitched low and given a more PC name?

A possible compromise solution instead of actual quotas would be to establish an ombudsman type inspectorate that would examine any industry or profession that had a severe bias toward recruiting any particular gender or type of person. The bias itself would be the trigger for an investigation, even without any allegation of inequality. If some kind of glass ceiling was found, it would be removed. Or recommendations might follow which would change working conditions to make them more suitable for more diverse types of people. I suspect this might be the key to the problem in most cases.
If the profession or industry was able to show that it was completely open to diversity, then no action need be taken.

Absolam

recedite wrote: »

A possible compromise solution instead of actual quotas would be to establish an ombudsman type inspectorate that would examine any industry or profession that had a severe bias toward recruiting any particular gender or type of person.

I'm not sure how workable such an idea would be, but on the face of it I like it far far more than gender quotas; it could be a means to highlight and address the root causes of gender inequality in areas where it needs to be dealt with, without resorting to draconian measures which prevent the most competent candidates being selected for jobs.

Peregrinus

I'm with recedite here. If a "floor requirement" is a rule requiring that "a minimum number of women gets hired or promoted", how is that not a quota? What further requirement would you have to add before it would become a quota?

Potatoeman

Peregrinus wrote: »

You're overlooking the fact that the reason that black people are underrepresented may well be that there isn't equal opportunity, even now. Cultural factors may be operating that preclude or hamper black people from making the choices that will take them to the boardroom, or that disincline boards to appoint black people.

I'm not saying that quotas would necessarily be justified. But it's absurdly simplistic to imagine that, because we have laws forbidding discrimination on racial grounds in employment, that people of all races enjoy equal opportunity. There's abundant evidence throughout the western world that they don't. You might as well argue that because we have laws against assualt, nobody ever goes in fear of being attacked.

Race discrimination falls down when you look at the Asian population in the US. They are actually better off than cocasians.