California May Become First State To Require Companies To Have Women On Their Boards (techcrunch.com)

Two female state senators from California are spearheading a bill to require companies to have women on their boards. "SB 826, which won Senate approval with only Democratic votes and has until the end of August to clear the Assembly, would require publicly held companies headquartered in California to have at least one woman on their boards of directors by end of next year," reports TechCrunch. "By 2021, companies with boards of five directors must have at least two women, and companies with six-member boards must have at least three women. Firms failing to comply would face a fine." From the report: "Gender diversity brings a variety of perspectives to the table that can help foster new and innovative ideas," said Democratic Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara, who is sponsoring the bill with Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins of San Diego. "It's not only the right thing to do, it's good for a company's bottom line."

Yet critics of the bill say it violates the federal and state constitutions. Business associations say the rule would require companies to discriminate against men wanting to serve on boards, as well as conflict with corporate law that says the internal affairs of a corporation should be governed by the state law in which it is incorporated. This bill would apply to companies headquartered in California. [A] legislative analysis of the bill cautioned that it could get challenged on equal protection grounds, and that it would be difficult to defend, requiring the state to prove a compelling government interest in such a quota system for a private corporation.

Comments

forcing of diversity

[arbiter1]

Yea Forcing Diversity in to things at the expense of people that could be more qualified has never been a bad idea.

Re:forcing of diversity

[Frank Burly]

My exposure to board-level people is that the positions are sinecures meant to demonstrate the bonafides of the company and provide inside access to the resources that board member is associated: eg. inventment banker, or someone from a VC firm, or the President's son. In other words the notion of "most qualified" is laughable.

California is attempting to address the chicken-and-egg problem of increasing the number of women in a position to be influential enough to ask to join the board in the first place.

This bill is a pretty blunt-force approach, but corporations are creatures of the state and this isn't an instance where a quota would have an impact on anything that could pretend to be a meritocracy.

Re:forcing of diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

Since there is absolutely no history of liberals coming up with ideas that they regret when conservatives do them twice as big (*cough Biden rule *cough senate justice nuclear option *cough) I wonder how long it will be until there are 'intrusive' rules requiring a certain number of conservatives on company boards and college professorships. You know, for the sake of diversity.

Re:forcing of diversity

[slashdice]

don't forget Ellen Pao.

Re:forcing of diversity

[K. S. Kyosuke]

and provide inside access to the resources that board member is associated: eg. inventment banker

In other words the notion of "most qualified" is laughable.

Didn't you just contradict yourself? That definitely seems like a qualification to me right there.

Re: forcing of diversity

[kenh]

When will California adopt similar diversity quotas for State Senators?

Also, I'm curious how this legislation defines "women"?

Re: forcing of diversity

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If you say you're a woman, you're a woman. Duh.

Re: forcing of diversity

[JaredOfEuropa]

Exactly. Which is why I am not necessarily opposed to a little positive action in cases like this. But let's not pretend that it's anything else besides solving the chicken- and-egg problem. For instance, the idea that:

Gender diversity brings a variety of perspectives to the table that can help foster new and innovative ideas

... is bollocks. In my experience at least, fresh perspectives and innovative ideas are fostered by - surprise, surprise - intellectual and cultural diversity. You get that in a multicultural environment (which you don't necessarily get by hiring the Officially Sanctioned number of each color of person), but cultural diversity between men and women from a similar cultural background is minimal. And the higher up you get, the smaller the difference seems to get.

Re:forcing of diversity

[stealth_finger]

and provide inside access to the resources that board member is associated: eg. inventment banker

In other words the notion of "most qualified" is laughable.

Didn't you just contradict yourself? That definitely seems like a qualification to me right there.

You can't just invent your own qualifications to save up for when you need them.

Re:forcing of diversity

[ilguido]

In situations like this forcing in a small wedge can be what is needed to start a move towards a genuine meritocracy and a system that doesn't exclude women.

I can't really see how you can conclude that, given what you just said:

Look at the average board and it's full of cronyism and nepotism.

Thinking that a cradle of cronyism and nepotism magically becomes a place of genuine meritocracy, by just including women, is just a baseless delusion.
It is either a meritocratic place or it is not: throwing women into the equation, you get either a meritocratic place with a few women more (possibly less meritocratic then) or a meeting of cronies (now both male and female cronies).
In the end it does nothing for "women", it is good only for a few, already privileged, women, namely the president's daughter, the CEO's lover and the venture capitalist's sister.
If you do not believe what I just said, look at how well "coloured quotas" worked in South Africa for coloured people (and South Africa at large).

Re: forcing of diversity

[Bongo]

A key point is that people's cognition, their worldview, grows and develops, just as a small child can't form certain concepts, as adults grow, they can develop wider, more sophisticated ways of viewing the world. And this is key, because it applies to everyone. And we don't really know why it happens differently in different people, but it is something about the individual and their experiences.

So as you say, diversity of thought, or rather, people whose thinking is more sophisticated, yeah, it helps to have those people running things.

Where things seem to go wrong is when we take what is a cognitive stage, which could appear in anyone, and start mandating that we should mix a certain proportion of labels (woman, black, chinese, tarns, indian, whatever), and that by mixing those labels, you will generate that higher level of cognition and worldviews. It is not so simple. You cannot force people to grow. What difference if the woman on the board has the same male traits of obsession with ruthless cuts as any other male? (Usually, men have greater focus, and narrower outlook.)

The pomo current adds yet another problem in that, it want this better world, but it disavows making value judgements about people, yet it makes value judgements about people. So, if women are no different to men, and the very notion of gender is a social construct, and yet women are supposed to have all these wonderful qualities which men don't. If men and women were no different, then there is no reason why we should include women more. If men and women were no different then there is no reason why men would be oppressing women any more than women would oppress women. Basically in pomo world, nothing makes sense.

But if they allowed clear value judgements, like saying that certain traits are being more highly valued and so we need to look at why women don't seem to value those traits, and why those traits are valued in business, and whether those traits make sense for the goals of the work, then you can start to have a debate about, what is it about corporate culture which is needlessly making it incompatible with other traits, and making itself unattractive to women? Is it just the long hours? Is it too much travel? Is it just too f***ing depressing that most women don't want to do it?

Pomo always wants to label victims and perpetrators. It is never women themselves making choices. Like how nurses are mostly women, and engineers are so often men. Nobody says women are oppressing men out of nursing. The question should be, why is a particular kind of work done in a way which promotes certain traits and not others? COULD that work be done in more effective way, if some of those other traits were valued more?

But if you merely mandate quotas out of some notion of justice, you just don't even touch that problem. It is like your code crashing all over the place but always returning "ok!" You have simply erased the warning light, not handled the underlying problem.

Anyway, that's just a couple of examples of how these issues need to be seen with value judgements and with discernment about making distinctions about things. It ain't just labels. The tricky part is to do it without introducing bias, but pomo is already so magtastically biased that you could only improve things at this point.

Re:forcing of diversity

[danbert8]

People who do not own the knowledge of the skills to solve a problem offer a "solution" for a problem they do not understand or know how to solve

I think you just defined "politics".

Re: forcing of diversity

[Reverend Green]

He's pointing out that "qualifed" just means a member in good standing of the financial nobility. Skill, intelligence, etc usually associated with "merit" have nothing to do with it.

Re:forcing of diversity

[iCEBaLM]

> In situations like this forcing in a small wedge can be what is needed to start a move towards a genuine meritocracy and a system that doesn't exclude women.

Here's the problem. These are **private** companies. They should be allowed to "exclude women" if they want. They should be able to choose their board however they damn well please. Women are not prevented from being directors of companies, they can start their own whenever they like, but forcing certain numbers of board members of private companies to be a certain sex is sexist, and wrong.

Re: forcing of diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not black women? They are far more underrepresented than white women, or oriental for that matter.

Re: forcing of diversity

[CrimsonAvenger]

When will California adopt similar diversity quotas for State Senators?

And nurses? Firefighters? Garbage collectors? Strippers? Elementary school teachers?

And...***insert long list of jobs where gender (sex?) discrimination is obvious because one sex or the other dominates***?

Re: forcing of diversity

[Ol Olsoc]

He's pointing out that "qualifed" just means a member in good standing of the financial nobility. Skill, intelligence, etc usually associated with "merit" have nothing to do with it.

In this instance, the qualification is distinctly called out. It is based upon the genitals of the qualified person.

We'll overlook that those who are born as a male are specifically denied x number of positions based upon their sex.

Regardless, this is an incredibly sexist and bigoted bill.

I guess I just don't understand how sexism is eliminated by sexism.

It isn't even affirmative action.

Re:forcing of diversity

[msauve]

Yeah, a law forcing discrimination and equality of outcome is going to pass Constitutional muster. What a blatantly sexist law.

Re: forcing of diversity

[DaFallus]

According to this it looks like the distribution of medical school graduates by gender appears to be pretty close to 50/50 at 47% female and 53% male for a whopping difference of 6%. Compare this with the distribution of nursing facility residents by gender where you have a 32% difference favoring females.

Re:forcing of diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

I still remember when I was in the Forest Service in the 90's and this "Gender Diversity" first started. A law suit on the Forest Service in California stated they needed to have more women in higher positions and especially in traditionally male positions like the well known, "Forest Ranger", position. Now there was no doubt such positions were dominated by men (not totally but mostly). Typical picture most people had at the time of a forest ranger was a man in his mid 30's with a Collie (aka Lassie) for a pet.

Most National Forests and such went out of their way to accommodate the new ruling. But they had a hard time. Many women were asked but did not want these positions. One who was qualified (and did have the desire and ability) was hired in two different regions for the same type job. It was so both regions could put on paper they had a female in these positions. She must have had a great paycheck. She also only had to show up a few days a month at one of those jobs. Is that fair?

There was one female ranger who spoke up. She sent out an email to all users in the service describing what she had seen. Had she been a man, she would have been shouted down and probably fired. But she said she found it pitiful to see women, who did secretarial or part time support work hired into jobs they were not trained for. The men who had been working hard to qualify for these positions were not only passed over, but ended out doing the work for these women so it would get done. Some still spent time doing their nails as they did in their previous position.

GO AHEAD AND HATE for putting it down, but I did not write her description. I simply read it. Every one of us guys in our office were so thankful there was a woman who had the guts to speak up. THE INSANITY of DIVERSITY (as proscribed by many judges) IS ONE REASON I GOT OUT of there. I hated the prospect of putting years into a position and then having a wall put in front of me just before I reached my goal. I FULLY EXPECT SLASHDOT TO DELETE MY INPUT. SLASHDOT does not support input if it does not support the opinions it wishes to purvey. But so what. Not everyone has to be a robot. But take me to your OVERLORDS.

Re: forcing of diversity

[ranton]

[Gender diversity bringing a variety of perspectives to the table that can help foster new and innovative ideas] is bollocks. In my experience at least, fresh perspectives and innovative ideas are fostered by - surprise, surprise - intellectual and cultural diversity.

Your experience doesn't mesh well with the research. While cultural diversity does provide more value than gender diversity, both are still valuable. A McKinsey report shows that companies in the top quartile of gender diversity are 21% more likely to have better than average profits. Just because top quartile cultural diversity companies are 33% more likely to have better than average profits doesn't mean gender diversity is not important. Both seem to provide significant value.

While this is just one study, a quick Google search will show plenty of research showing the value of gender diversity.

And the higher up you get, the smaller the difference seems to get.

Actually according to the study linked to above, the benefit is even more drastic at the board of director level. So it appears the higher up you get the larger the difference seems to get.

Re: forcing of diversity

[LynnwoodRooster]

Better yet, why not Republicans? They are even more rare in California. I thought the pursuit of diversity was about getting lots of opinions out there so that the best idea can be formulated. What's the benefit if you have 19 people - all different genders and ethnicities - with the same group-think opinion?

Re:forcing of diversity

[luis_a_espinal]

and provide inside access to the resources that board member is associated: eg. inventment banker

In other words the notion of "most qualified" is laughable.

Didn't you just contradict yourself? That definitely seems like a qualification to me right there.

You left out the other (and far more relevant part):

or someone from a VC firm, or the President's son.

With all things equal, qualifications are the great equalizer. But not all things are equal. Never underestimate the power of social capital, and we don't have that many true meritocracies (we have self-perpetuating systems - read Chris Hayes' "Twilight of the Elites".)

I don't necessarily agree with the bill, but I see where it comes from. It won't necessarily alter boards' to deleterious effects, and it *might* extend the benefit of social capital to other capable people (women) that typically lack access to it.

It is neither a silver bullet panacea, nor stake in a board's heart. Time will tell how well it moves the needle (positively or negatively.)

Re: forcing of diversity

[luis_a_espinal]

When will California adopt similar diversity quotas for State Senators?

And nurses? Firefighters? Garbage collectors? Strippers? Elementary school teachers?

And...***insert long list of jobs where gender (sex?) discrimination is obvious because one sex or the other dominates***?

Those careers you mention aren't susceptible to social capital the way boards are. And some of them have that gender tilt because of gender or cultural preferences, not because of glass ceiling barriers or lack of social capital.

I don't necessarily agree with this bill, but your counter-argument is reaching into the realm of the far-fetched.

Re: forcing of diversity

[Archangel Michael]

You're not even close to being right. But the narrative must survive!

There are plenty of studies that clearly show that women are generally not oppressed in the workplace, but rather make different value judgements with regard to careers. There are plenty of studies that show these differences, and how they are not societal constructs, but rather rooted in biological differences.

Men tend to like things. Women tend to like people. It is why boys play with Trucks n balls, and girls play with dolls and social games (tea party). This explains why more women go into nursing and more men engineering.

This isn't to say that ALL women are one way, or ALL men are another, as with most things in life, it all falls along a sliding scale.

But the SJW/Womyn Studies narrative against the patriarchy must go on!

Re: forcing of diversity

[shilly]

The tide is turning in medicine, albeit slowly. But note that you are talking about graduates, ie folks at the start of their careers. It's going to be 20+ years before that will ripple through to the upper echelons of the profession.

Re: forcing of diversity

[shilly]

Um. If I ignored the sentiment, I would have had to misquote you and remove the words "tend to". So no, I'm not ignoring that. I don't see that it helps either bolster your argument or weaken mine. You made the link between men and things and engineering; and women and people and nursing. I provided counter-examples. Not that tricky to follow, surely? Especially with your special manly man logic. I know, because I have the same special manly man powers of rational deductive reasoning too. They lead me to conclude that you are more interested in obfuscation than debate. Else you would have responded to my original challenges by:
1. Providing some evidence to support your claim that "there are plenty of studies", especially when challenged on this
2. Responding meaningfully to my counter-examples of medicine, law and politics.

Feel free to go ahead and do that any time you like.

Re: forcing of diversity

[Ol Olsoc]

Or... We should use the system and choose to identify as the sex desired for the position. At least at the office.

I don't see why I couldn't be a man who identifies a woman who is gender queer and hyper masculine.

I can see this is going to end up with a peen and vagene inspector eventually.

Diversity, but not for all

[Anonymous Coward]

What about companies with all female board of directors? Will they be forced to have males on board or does equality only matter when you have a vagina?

Re: Diversity, but not for all

[blindseer]

So are young Jewish men, like Ben Shapiro, bad?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Re: Diversity, but not for all

[blindseer]

If that's all it takes to dismiss his religion on the hierarchy of the oppressed then I could just as easily claim Sanders is a dishonest actor, and therefore gets no "points" based on his age, gender, religion, or whatever. What proof do I have that Sanders is dishonest? He's a politician for Vectron's sake!

What about?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm confused. I thought California had officially settled on 1,000's of genders. Is this not discriminatory to Neutois demi-boys? Or woodsprite pansexuals? I mean, I understand there is a need to keep out Apache Attack Helicopters but we need balance here!

What about Hispanics?

[El Cubano]

Wait a minute. I'm Hispanic. Where is the law that requires companies to have at least one Hispanic on their board? Why does the California legislature hate me?

Re:What about Hispanics?

[SirAstral]

Because this is an easy low hanging fruit law. It is just simple numbers. There are only 2 genders, but several different races and nationalities, ethnicities to consider, that is until we decide to cross into the LBGTQ etc territory.

This allows those in support of these laws to claim that they are for equality without having to actually go the distance, hence the cheap low hanging fruit comment. The idea is to introduce "feel good" laws that serve no purpose other than to advance an agenda.

The problem with things like this is others get left out, in your case your Hispanic origin and still leaves you directly discriminated against. As this progresses at which point do we call it done? There are potentially an infinite number of minority configurations possible. Gender, Race, Religion, Politic, Fraternity, Age, Ugly, Pretty? This is why "individuality" needs to be the ideal. There is no greater minority than the individual, which means any other form of classification only results in a caste/class system where one group gets special treatment at the expense of other groups. It creates division... and right now much division has been created under the guise of inclusion.

Re:What about Hispanics?

[Amiga Trombone]

That solves it! Just have one of the board members identify as a woman!

Re:What about Hispanics?

[Raenex]

I'm only Mexican-American so I'm not allowed to have a culture

I'm American. This is why civic nationalism is dead in this country. Nearly every non-white person identifies as a hyphenated American.

Re: What about Hispanics?

[reanjr]

This is CA. There are more than two genders.

Re:What about Hispanics?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they "identify" as themselves. The idea of unity is dead, hence all of the various camps: "White", "Black", "Hispanic", "Straight", "Gay", "Male", "Female", etc. cropping up everywhere in politics. We as a society have devolved to only considering those physically similar to us as "members."

It's true what they say, "United we stand, Devided we fall." We are falling pretty darn quick, from both an international perspective, and a local perspective.

Re:What about Hispanics?

[Bert64]

Gender is not a social construct, it is a biological fact...

The social construct is how the genders are typically expected to behave, and is largely arbitrary and stupid. How you behave doesn't change your biological gender.

Re:What about Hispanics?

[antdude]

What about blacks, disabled, etc.? :(

Re: What about Hispanics?

[Bert64]

Society is arbitrary, as evidenced by the fact we have so many of them each with their own artificial constructs...

That is so 20th century

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about the intersectional thing now. A woman? Why not a black muslim woman? Or better yet someone who is transgender or gender fluid? That law is so behind the times. You have to be a member of a grievance group to get attention.

Sadly - this identity politics thing is fueling the rise of white nationalism. Which is another identity ground centered around grievance as well. Strangely - many far left and far right groups are in solidarity on socialism. Weird.

Re:That is so 20th century

[Anonymous Coward]

Go tell Japan that.

Re:That is so 20th century

[Brett Buck]

More or less. I agree with you - but "white nationalism"? A grand total of 20 people showed up at the so-called "Unite the Right" rally this weekend, billed as a major "white nationalist" gathering. This is more-or-less what always happens at neo-Nazi get-togethers, a few morons giving Sig Heils to each other, and 2000 protesters.

    "White nationalists" are neither "right", nor "nationalists", and they are nothing and mean nothing to national politics, aside from being dim-witted pawns in a game by the hard-left to stereotype conservatives.

There is nothing that is remotely conservative or "right" about these nitwits. Being conservative in the USA means believe in individual liberty, natural law, and limited government. Socialism/"National Socialism"/Facism/Communism or any other form of totalitarianism couldn't be any less compatible with that idea, and is fundamentally incompatible with the constitution.

Re:That is so 20th century

[aticus.finch]

Absurd strawman of the academic left is blamed for a long-standing undercurrent of the political right --modded +5 insightful.

I just thought I would point that out

How is that a strawman? Both groups are screeching about non-existent oppression that they are subjected to.

The far right is indistinguishable from the far left.

Re:That is so 20th century

[stealth_finger]

Absurd strawman of the academic left is blamed for a long-standing undercurrent of the political right --modded +5 insightful.

I just thought I would point that out

How is that a strawman? Both groups are screeching about non-existent oppression that they are subjected to.

The far right is indistinguishable from the far left.

Strawman? How dare you? I'll thank you to use the gender neutral strawperson and next time check your microagressions.

Re:That is so 20th century

[The Cynical Critic]

The far left is typically the side that causes most fights at rallies and is way more eager to protest by destroying private and public property, kind of like how antifa pretty much wrecked a whole working class neighborhood at the last G20 summit. Hell, even the political murder argument hasn't held any water for two years after that Black Lives Matter activist shot 5 police officers to death and wounded 9 others along with 2 bystanders at a Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas.

Mind you, I say this as a traditional liberal who wouldn't bat an eye if we loaded both the far left and the right into a big rocket and shot them all into the sun.

Re:That is so 20th century

[AmiMoJo]

The fact that 20 people turned up to Unite the Right this year is because they badly misjudged the reaction of the nation last year. They convinced themselves that many ordinary people agreed with them but just needed permission to come out and say it by seeing the nationalists march openly and proudly.

What actually happened is that they lost their jobs, someone got murdered and the expected widespread support never materialised. The bubble they had been living in burst.

They are called nationalists because the alt-right wants to create an ethnostate. They think America is a "white country" and want to make it more racially pure. These ideas and the term "nationalist" dates back to the Nazis, or "National Socialists".

The reason they are associated with the more mainstream right of US politics (which is actually far right by most standards, with the Democrats being a somewhat right of centre too) is that some members of the GOP have been saying the same stuff and the alt-right has been trying to take control of that party. Don't forget that Steve Bannon was Trump's close adviser and campaign manager, a lot of the populist language Trump uses comes from him. The alt-right really thought that with Trump in power they were about to become the mainstream of US politics, but fortunately it didn't happen.

I hope that American conservatives do push back hard against this a reclaim the Republican party with more moderate views.

Re:That is so 20th century

[Brett Buck]

This is absurd stereotyping. The vast, vast majority of the people who created the modern western world were "Christian Conservative"s. The people who started the slavery abolition movement were "Christian Conservatives" on the principle that it was fundamentally against Christ to treat your fellow man like property - they wrote the words "all men are created equal", which you may be familiar with.

      I am not a Christian, but it's absolutely ridiculous to categorize an entire - very large - group of people with these ridiculous narrow definitions. It's a sign of your own ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and need to play identity politics that leads you do it. Learn something about the development of Western Civilization, and grow the hell up.

Re:That is so 20th century

[drinkypoo]

Do you really think gamers and scientists are trying to eliminate non-white people? Because that's who the far left are going after. They've gone so far left even the socialists are "far right" to them.

Gamergate is about sexism, not conservatism, though I can see how you'd be confused since conservatives are generally sexist. And antifa is not attacking the scientist with the sexy shirt, either. You're frothing.

You're freaking out about PROPOSED bills.

[RyanFenton]

There's a lot of intentionally provocative/trollish bills california congress - which actually have weak effects, and are mostly pushing for industries to self-regulate, and are NOT actually expected to pass, but reach compromise.

You know, all the stuff that some folks compliment Trump on pushing as genius strategic moves.

More importantly, which a lot of these summaries (and this article) seem to gloss over - this is only for the California senate - not the US senate.

None of these things are positions asked for by Democrats in general, or even these Democrats, except as a starting point of negotiation.

Ryan Fenton

Re:You're freaking out about PROPOSED bills.

[El Cubano]

There's a lot of intentionally provocative/trollish bills california congress - which actually have weak effects, and are mostly pushing for industries to self-regulate, and are NOT actually expected to pass, but reach compromise.

If it isn't expected to pass, then why was the largest committee tally of "noes" only 2 votes and why did it pass the floor vote with 66% "yeas" of those who voted and 56% "yeas" if include the non-votes? Don't believe me? Then see for yourself.

That doesn't seem like something that has no chance of passing. It is has a chance at passing and as a result a chance of being profoundly damaging.

Re:You're freaking out about PROPOSED bills.

[djinn6]

It is has a chance at passing and as a result a chance of being profoundly damaging.

It's not going to be profoundly damaging. At worst companies will "relocate" their headquarters to Delaware. At best it'll be immediately struck down for gender discrimination at the federal level.

Re:You're freaking out about PROPOSED bills.

[AmiMoJo]

Would it be "profoundly damaging" if it had the intended effect? How would having at least one woman on every board cause this profound damage?

Re:You're freaking out about PROPOSED bills.

[The Cynical Critic]

If you have to dedicate a board seat to someone who's not necessarily the most competent and/or driven person to fill that it's obviously going to be to detriment of the company. Let's not even go into what it's going to be for the person who has to fill the seat knowing they got hired because of their gender and not their qualifications and the resentment this is bound to create towards this person.

Would you want to occupy a position you knew you got not because of your abilities, experience or dedication to the job, but because of how you were born? Because I sure as hell wouldn't.

Re:You're freaking out about PROPOSED bills.

[The Cynical Critic]

So your solution to un-deserved board appointments trough nepotism, underhanded corporate infighting, etc. is to make it even harder for the most qualified people to get on corporate boards? Because this sure as hell isn't going to help with any of those issues as the lady seat will obviously be coming out of those assigned based on merit. All it does is create a situation which is essentially gender-nepotism rather than actually making things more equal for competent and dedicated women.

But hey, why fix actually fix something when it's easier to just pretend you're fixing it while only making the underlying issue worse? Because giving the impression you're helping seems to be more important to today's feminists than actually fixing real problems. You can see it pretty well in how feminists actually defend those using false accusations of rape and sexual harassment to further their own goals by arguing that their actions were justified as they were "starting a conversation" or something.

So equality no longer desired?

[argStyopa]

I thought we were working to make everyone treated the same?

Now, women need preference quotas to fill chairs.

Got it. I'm SURE that will give them the respect they precisely deserve.

Re:So equality no longer desired?

[supercell]

You see feminist are not about equality, they have had that, this is about selfishness, money and power for their themselves, their sex. This is pure evil. It will cause divisiveness and continued fracturing of society. The politicians should be eliminated.

Re:So equality no longer desired?

[theM_xl]

I imagine the thinking is that having a woman on the board will make corporations less likely to do evil shit like dumping poison in a lake.

You've not met many women, have you?

Constitution?

[Brett Buck]

Oh, that old thing? What's all that talk about "equal protection clause"?

Why not be able to use the best available?

[bobstreo]

With this type of reasoning, there will soon be NFL teams with women in wheelchairs as linemen.

Typically bard members are all of similar socioeconomic backgrounds.

They're all either very wealthy or politically powerful.

Why not force companies to have a certain number of members from different financial, ethnic or religious backgrounds?

Just making them choose more women for their board is offensive to pretty much everyone.

The best place to start enacting policies like this would of course be California government hires and candidates for election.

Re:Why not be able to use the best available?

[blindseer]

Just making them choose more women for their board is offensive to pretty much everyone.

Women should take the most offense to this. If women are to claim that they are as able to do anything as any man then they will have to be able to prove it without the government clearing a path for them. This isn't a "victory" for equality, this is making some people "more equal than others".

Re:Why not be able to use the best available?

[AmiMoJo]

Bizarre logic.

Two people are running a 100m race. One notices that there are hurdles in their lane. They suggest that to make it a fair competition the hurdle be removed, and you tell them that they need to prove themselves the "equal" of someone running down a clear lane. Furthermore, the mere suggestion of levelling the playing field should offend them.

Consistency

[myid]

James Damore got in trouble, because his memo said that women don't think the same way that men do.

But Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson says, "Gender diversity brings a variety of perspectives to the table that can help foster new and innovative ideas."

So do women think differently from men, only when this difference should make you want to hire women?

Re: Consistency

[Anonymous Coward]

You just made a value judgement. Every comment here is a value judgement.

I suspect you view anyone who expresses an opinion contrary to yours as "hostile".

See, I just made a value judgement too.

I'd like men to live as long as women

[piojo]

I'd like men to live as long as women, and to have a suicide rate that's equally low. Can we get more funding for research (and subsidized medical care) to level the playing field? And how about criminal justice interventions which stop our prisons from being full of men?

Equality is great, unless it's applied unevenly. And frankly, I will worry about boards of directors after I worry about healthcare and unequal application of justice.

Re:I'd like men to live as long as women

[piojo]

I'm not the parent, but I think it was your alleging that "toxic masculinity" is responsible. I gather that the official feminist position is that "toxic masculinity" is not a term that is critical of men, but when you use it in public (outside the walls of a feminist theory lecture), it's naive to assume people won't take it that way. I usually take it as a bit of mild but willful aggression, but I admit you may interpret words differently than me.

Re:I'd like men to live as long as women

[AmiMoJo]

The problem isn't masculinity, it's toxic ideas about what masculinity is.

And yes, toxic femininity does exist too. Women's lib back in the 60s helped move away from the idea that a woman's worth was in how she looked, getting married and providing her husband with children and dinner on the table. Nothing wrong with doing those things if you want to, but not doing them was see as a dereliction or failure.

What we really need is men's lib. Get away from those old ideas about what a man should be and accept men as they are, doing what they want to do rather than what society expects of them.

business opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

I am starting a company that supplies randomly sourced women hookers for board seats. Great hourly rates plus many of those women might end up being smarter than the rest of the board.

Re: business opportunity

[TimMD909]

Wouldn't work. Hookers know how to screw 1, maybe 3, at a time. Board members must be able to screw everyone in the company at once. Hookers can't simply do that scale.

Loophole --> hilarity ensues

[dbrueck]

The bill contains this little nugget in the footnotes:

" “Female” means an individual who self-identifies her gender as a woman, without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth."

I was already hoping the bill would pass because of the silliness of it, but with the above it's gonna be comedy gold.

Re:Of all the reasons not to give a shit...

[blindseer]

I'm all for states regulating companies that do business within them. I mean, I get that all of Silicon Valley decided to incorporate in Delaware, but they live in California. Let California regulate them.

You do realize that they can chose to not live in California, no? California already drove out a handful of aerospace companies because of their stupid laws. They wanted to regulate "rocket fuel" as a toxic substance. I don't know if they realized this or not but "rocket fuel" is no different than jet fuel, fuel oil, gasoline, or any other hydrocarbon fuel. There are already rules on this on the state and federal level. But it's "rocket fuel" now and so the state wanted all kinds of paperwork to burn "rocket fuel" in their state. Well, that just meant they lost a lot of future business in the space launch industry to Texas, Colorado, Florida, Arizona, etc.

I don't much care what the restriction is on a business, so long as a company can free themselves from a state restriction by moving out of the state then California will lose businesses. I believe that if California did not have such great weather that they'd have gone bankrupt a long time ago by now. There's only so much that beaches and sunshine can buy.

Maybe someone could argue that this rule serves some "greater good" but it won't. Here's why, can you define a "woman" for me? Seems simple enough, right? Well, there was a story going around the internet a week or a month ago on how a Canadian man got himself a discount on his car insurance by declaring himself a woman. He didn't take any hormones, he didn't undergo any surgery, he didn't change his name or his "pronouns". He simply wanted the lower insurance rates that women get and so found a physician willing to sign a form and got his sex changed on paper. So, legally speaking, he's a "woman".

I don't know if it's the same people that are trying to hold these two conflicting ideas at once, or two different sides of this debate trying to make conflicting points, but whatever this is it will end up eating itself in the nonsense. If gender is just a social construct then there is no man and there is no woman. Men cannot oppress women if this is a social construct because then women can gain the same "male privileges" by declaring themselves men. If gender is not just a social construct then they will have to admit that men and women are different, not that men are better, only different.

If men are different than women then there are things that men will excel in that women will not. Also, there will be things that women excel at that men will not. If men and women are different then this will be exposed in things like men being more prominent in being on corporate boards.

If this nonsense continues then we'll see board members leave as "Bruce" one day and only return the next in a dress and lipstick as "Cait". And who will dare to say this person is not a woman?

Re:Great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

WTH. No NSFW tag. At least you should give a little warning.
Off to wash my eyes out at the eye station.

Its like they say!

[Notabadguy]

Like the old adage goes - Democrat Ideas: So great that they have to be enforced.

Re:Its like they say!

[Notabadguy]

Nope, that was wrong:

Democratic Ideas: So Great that they have to be mandatory.

Oh for fucks sake

[rsilvergun]

this is a terrible idea. It'll energize the right wing in the State giving them plenty of legitimate talking points/grievances. It's obviously unconstitutional discrimination so it'll get shot down in court wasting a ton of money too.

On the plus side stuff like this is very popular with a certain kind of Democrat. To whit: right wing "corporate" Democrats who need something to throw to the base besides economic issues. This let's them run in left wing districts while opposing stuff like single payer healthcare, college for all, ending the 8 wars we're in, The New New Deal etc, etc. It's the Democrat equivalent to Dog Whistling and just as despicable.

Re:Business Discriminates Quite Well

[blindseer]

Considering that women are, what 50% of the population, I find it hard to believe that woman are not being discriminated in one way or another

Really? Women are being discriminated against, that's the only possible explanation?

Dr. Jordan Peterson spoke about this in a number of his lectures and interviews on YouTube. His explanation for this is that women are more sane and therefore less likely to take on the insane job of being a board member. I'm not quoting him, as he puts it more "diplomatically" for lack of a better word, I just paraphrased what I heard.

To be a board member means being hyper-competitive, exhibiting anti-social behavior, having poor work/life balance, and generally being a very unhealthy and unfriendly person. Women are less likely to be board members because women are generally of a better mental health to not even try to become one.

I have to wonder just how much women would want to be around people of such poor mental health. There's no doubt that some women would enjoy this, but on the average women tend to be of better mental health and choose to be with people that also are of good mental health, just like any man of good mental health would want to avoid a board meeting.

It is not only women whom are left out of the board room, but race should also be a part of the discussion.

Perhaps leaving other races out of this would be best for their mental health as well.

Government is there is do what is good for everyone.

Maybe it would be best for everyone to leave these white middle aged men to their high rates of depression, substance abuse, suicide, heart and liver disease (no doubt a result from stress, bad diet, drinking and smoking), and the early death that comes with it all.

There's too many men in the legislature!

[blindseer]

I just did a search on the gender makeup of the California legislature, and I find only one woman for every four men. I demand gender equality within the California legislature! How dare they make such demands on corporations within their state without first making this demand upon themselves!

Here's an idea, maybe this just might work. Let's let the people of California choose who they wish to represent them in the legislature AND let corporations choose who they wish to be on their executive boards. I know, that's just crazy talk. I'm thinking it might just work out for the best though.

Here's another idea, California can pass this law and they have it get shredded to pieces in the courts. This is a step too far, it violates so many levels that make up freedom of choice and equal protection under the law.

Here's some other "equality" laws that California should consider. I believe that there are too many Democrats in the legislature, we should have a law that all political parties need to be represented equally. Let's also have racial equality in the legislature. We should also work on equality of time served in the legislature. If this "equality" is good for business then it is good for government, no?

Re:There's too many men in the legislature!

[angel'o'sphere]

I believe that there are too many Democrats in the legislature, we should have a law that all political parties need to be represented equally.
Why are you pretending to be ironic?
Actually most countries in the world either have such laws or simply handle it that way by code of honour.

The idea in the US, that a new government purges the administration from people who are in the wrong party or vote for the wrong party or support the wrong party, reminds us about soviet Stalin russia.

Re: Less qualifed men should WORRY

[Anonymous Coward]

There are fewer women on boards not becuse women are less intelligent but because there are fewer of them at the top of corporations , fewer of them with the depth of experience which would actually br beneficial to a company. The reason for that is not discrimination, it's that women overwhelmingly make different life choices than the men who fight their way to the top of these companies. It's perfectly clear ftom the internationsl data thst this is their vhoice. That is their right.

There are women who are accomplished and sit on boards , run companies etc., just a lot fewer.

What gets me is when women encounter the real level of competetive viciousness inside companies, they think they're being targeted because they're women. Wrong. They do the exact same thing to men, it's just that men eat it.

Women are smarter in a certain way. They see how bad it is and decide it's not worth it earlier than men do. They preserve more of their vital years for thing that matter than men do. This has to be counted as a form of intelligence.

Ihave a friend who works at a hospital. She watches high powered men die all the time. They almost all regret how they dpent their lives.

I would not want to have accomplished what Steve Jobs accomplished if it came with the price tag of being the person we now know Steve Jobs to have been.

You buy things with the hours of your life. Some peopel, men mostly, buy command psoitions in corporations and all that goes with that. That is their due. You can't just hand it out to people who didn't earn it.

Re:Less qualifed men should WORRY

[Bert64]

If they were better qualified than the available men, then they would already be appointed to the boards without needing any legislation. Companies are not going to appoint less qualified people unless they're forced to (eg by legislation like this)...

Re: misogynist rationalisations

[Anonymous Coward]

as expected you misquoted me via ellipsis, cherry picked a recent news item to deflect from decades of substantive academically rigorous studies and then dismissed the most humanly relevant part of my post.

Feminists are just people with personality disorders they've politicized.

Re:Less qualifed men should WORRY

[Capsaicin]

Gesetze sind wie Würste, man sollte besser nicht dabei sein, wenn sie gemacht werden
--Bismarck

If they were better qualified than the available men, then they would already be appointed to the boards without needing any legislation.

Riiiiiiiight!

Companies are not going to appoint less qualified people unless they're forced to ...

What are you talking about? They clearly do!

Nor is this just a male/female thing either, among others, it's famously a "what school did you go to" thing as well. Maybe for the crucial technical jobs qualification win, but companies are full of humans making decision on a very human basis: first and foremost they decide in favour of "people-like-us". You cannot seriously believe that the better qualified guy has never lost out on a job to the better connected guy. (It's not what you know ...)

Plus we are talking company boards here. How do you spell sinecure?

Re:Of all the reasons not to give a shit...

[serviscope_minor]

You do realize that they can chose to not live in California, no? California already drove out a handful of aerospace companies because of their stupid laws. They wanted to regulate "rocket fuel" as a toxic substance. I don't know if they realized this or not but "rocket fuel" is no different than jet fuel, fuel oil, gasoline, or any other hydrocarbon fuel.

There's loads of different kinds of rocket fuel. Kerosene is used for the first stage. Hydrazine and DNTO are both very nasty and popular in satellite rocket engines used for station keeping.

Re:Less qualifed men should WORRY

[angel'o'sphere]

Being on a board does not require any qualifications.
It requires connections!

Re: Less qualifed men should WORRY

[Minupla]

1) There are very few females in the top ranks of genius

2) It may well be that at the tail end of the bell-curve, there are fewer women than men.

2 does not necessarily follow from 1. My daughter lives towards the top end of the curve. Getting her TESTED only happened because we noticed issues she was having, and had the resources to privately test her (it costed about 4k$ by the time it was all said and done). The school didn't notice because she was a B student, they don't pay much attention to quiet, geeky, autistic girls who are scoring OK in school.

So I submit that the reality may not be a discrepancy in the number of females in the 99.99+ percentile range, but rather the number of females in the 99.99+ percentile range that are tested.

Our school district has since instituted 100% screening for gifted children, recognizing this and other statistical dependencies, and it'll be interesting to see how the statistics change over time.

Min

Re:Loophole -- hilarity ensues

[cascadingstylesheet]

The bill contains this little nugget in the footnotes:

" “Female” means an individual who self-identifies her gender as a woman, without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth."

I was already hoping the bill would pass because of the silliness of it, but with the above it's gonna be comedy gold.

I look forward to the coder bro CEOs having to come to work in dresses as "Mary".

I mean, those who don't do that already ...

Do they not know how board members are chosen?

[sabbede]

Board members are voted into place by the stockholders. Is California looking to undo that? Do the Senators who passed this realize how many rights would be violated or invalidated by it? Who told them they had anything like the authority to do so?

Re: Less qualifed men should WORRY

[Oswald McWeany]

"Women do not like confrontation or long hours"
Do you even hear yourself? This is the stuff you tell yourself, there's not a shred of evidence to demonstrate it. Specifically, I challenge you to find any half-decent studies showing a meaningful difference between women and men on their preference for confrontation or working long hours.

I'm too lazy to google it, and I'm not saying the study is accurate; but I did read one study a long time ago that looked into why women still earn less and earn fewer promotions held on to personal dynamics. Yeah, sexism plays a major role too- but when it comes to office politics, women were shown (in this one study) to be more likely to hold onto a grudge and remember a disagreement more than men. Women were 4 or 5 more times more likely to say that they have a boss or coworker who they consider a "foe or enemy" than men were. Typically if men had a disagreement at work, after a few weeks they'd forget about it. Women were less likely to forget what they considered a slight on them.

If this study were accurate (and I've no clue how accurate it is, its something I read a few years ago and I don't remember the details) - it could explain why in todays world where sexism is tolerated less and women are achieving more than men academically fewer women reach the top of corporations. They could be treating like enemies the very people who would promote them.

  Again, I'm not saying I agree with the study, just throwing it out there as something I read- and it sounds plausible.

Re: misogynist rationalisations

[Ol Olsoc]

No, because no woman has ever been attacked in a highly highly gendered fashion, called "bitches" when aggressive (though less than their "go-get-it" male counterparts), accused of sleeping around, or of being pre-menstrual, etc, etc, etc. You're livin in fucken dreamland matey.

I know - my wife was the highest paid person in her company - Higher indeed than the owner. It was a company involved in flooring and construction, so lots of "traditional men" worked there.

All those things happened.

She was called a bitch - by women.

She was accused all the time of sleeping with the boss - by women.

All of that stuff that people try to attribute to men. Man, there were some nasty sexist bigot women there.

One thing both she and I learned was that there is a interesting relationship between loud people and what they say, and what they do.

These women were very loud about how they were oppressed because of their sex, but if a woman did well, they made excuses for that success based soley on..... sex. Projection 101. They were sexist bigots, and the only positive thing they got out of their bigotry was a cheap easy excuse for their own lack of success.

Their projection was not unlike the Social Conservative gay hating folks who rail on about the unholy sinful acts of sodomy, but then are caught having sex with another of the same sex.

This is no accident, it is projection. Accuse others of what you are.

there are sexists of both sexes, obviously. I merely point out that if we use sexism to cure sexism, it will never work.

And since Animojo will chime in here, telling me I am doing the same - no, I'm not.

If I wrote something stupid like "All women are sexist", that would be a pretty good indicator that I was projecting, and probably am guilty of what I am accusing others of.

No, I just react, noting that a system that determines qualification for a position based on the equipment between a person's legs, is the very definition of sexist. These sexist women are trying to pass an overtly sex based law. To deny that is to be sexist.

Re: Great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Rich men. Not white men.

There are plenty of white dudes who get fucked too. Plenty of systemic discrimination against subsets of âoewhiteâ that get lumped in.

You fell for it though. Donâ(TM)t feel bad, a lot of people do.

Rich vs poor, not white vs black, or women vs men. Itâ(TM)s just a distraction.

Re: Less qualifed men should WORRY

[shilly]

Um. You're not very good at following a debate, are you? If you were, you'd have noticed that when Quenda posed their very exciting simple question about men and women above the neck, they did so as a means of ... what's the word I'm looking for ... oh yes, "dodging" the challenge I put to them: "find any half-decent studies showing a meaningful difference between women and men on their preference for confrontation or working long hours".

As it appears to have escaped what passes for yours and Quenda's tiny minds, the bar of my challenge -- which was set by the OP's assertion that women don't like conflict and long hours -- is quite a lot higher than showing there are meaningful psychological differences between men and women per se. The meaningful psychological differences may relate to completely different things, like colour preference or ability to process auditory stimuli.

You guys got so fucking frothed up on your little rhetorical flourishes that you are completely unable to follow the logic of an argument. The irony of this coming from people who so frequently pride themselves on so-called masculine traits of dispassionate argument is a delicious added extra. Have you ever thought of applying to go on Who Is America? You're very well suited to a segment.

Re: Less qualifed men should WORRY

[djinn6]

You know, at most companies, there's nothing stopping you from putting in more hours. In fact, they'd be pretty happy about it.