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California Has a New Law: No More All-Male Boards (cnn.com)
Companies headquartered in California can no longer have all-male boards. From a report: That's according to a new law, enacted Sunday, which requires publicly traded firms in the state to place at least one woman on their board of directors by the end of 2019 -- or face a penalty. It also requires companies with five directors to add two women by the end of 2021, and companies with six or more directors to add at least three more women by the end of the same year. It's the first such law on the books in the United States, though similar measures are common in European countries. The measure was passed by California's state legislature last month. And it was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday, along with a trove of other bills that look to "protect and support women, children and working families," the governor's office said in a release. A majority of companies in the S&P 500 have at least one woman on their boards, but only about a quarter have more than two, according to a study from PwC.
What happened to simply choosing the best candidate for the job instead of meeting quotas?
And did that law seriously just assume the gender of someone sitting on the board of directors?!
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Yes, I am a white male.
Yes I have witnessed discrimination against women.
Yes, I have also witnessed discrimination against men.
Yes, I have witnessed discrimination against minorities too.
Yes, I do believe measures must be taken to eliminate discrimination.
No, I do not think laws such as this would fall under the measures to eliminate discrimination” category, nor that they would do any good.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Should be placed due to qualifications, not gender.
This is the same misconception I see time an time again.
Equal representation does not equal not being sexist. It is actually just more sexism as you have to fill the role taking into account their gender.
There is also a second sexist thing that is going on, as long as it sexism is against the gender that is thought to be in the wrong. This type of sexism is deemed ok. I strongly disagree with this. It just more sexism.
Equality is for all, not just one gender.
On one side, we have those who believe that the "best" candidate should always get the job. They don't really know what "best" means, because they clearly keep hiring the guy who is not the "best", but he's a great guy from a great family from the best schools, so there.
One the other side, we have those who believe that the government should phone them up with a great job while they finish another game level and devour another bag of Cheetos in mom's basement.
There, that about sums up the flaming about to happen here.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
fairness and justice will only be reached when 3 of those seats are mandated to be filled by African-Americans, and 3 are reserved for Hispanic Americans.
.. For those thousands of new immigrants.
You're fucked. All of you and soon it will spread to other G20 countries if it hasn't already.
Furthermore it is now required to have at least one moron, one down syndrome, one bozo the clown, one batman, one hippie, one streetsweeper, one biker, one dog and one skeleton on the board.
Merits are overrated according to people without merit.
It seems this will clash with other laws that basically say that anyone who says they are a woman is presumed to be a woman. Could it happen that a California company states that board members Chris and Pat are women, Chris and Pat say they are women, but the state disagrees and says they are men?
Do non-binaries count against the new gender quota?
Aldous Huxley would definitely be laughing and saying he told us so.
What could possibly be more insulting to women than to suggest that they cannot negotiate power on their own as individuals? What's next? CA demands that VC invest at most 50% of their capital investment into companies started by men? These people need to be driven out of Sacramento with pitchforks and blowtorches.
If "choosing according to merit" magically selects only straight white dudes, your definition of "merit" badly needs examining because you're basically saying that straight white dudes are somehow objectively superior.
Mixed race woman.... ?
[($)]
Will boards consisting of 5 women be required to add 2 men?
Watch as a bunch of businesses re-incorporate in another state. The politicians in Sacramento haven't figured out that a lot of businesses are not physically tied to California. My state already has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the country and the fees are never ending.
-- Will program for bandwidth
because even wommynz just won't get onto boards without laws saying they must get on.
I am really looking forward to the lawsuits deciding whether a post-op or pre-op transgender person (is transgender the right term to use? I honestly don't know) is one gender or the other as it comes to sitting on the board for some company.
Is an operation even necessary? I mean can't a person merely say they personally identify as a female and as per California values that's the end of the story, the person's declaration MUST be honored.
If claiming a female identity is all that is necessary to use the women's restroom, then that is all that is necessary to meet the quota for the boardroom.
You actually think board selection is a meritocracy? The further one goes from doing measurable tasks, the more social issues play into selection. The office is chock full of politics and social maneuvering. I can tell you boatloads of stories.
Table-ized A.I.
I, for one, welcome mandatory diversity quotas.
However, this change does not go far enough. The next step should be to institute racial quotas [over-representation of whites] religious quotas [muslims are woefully unrepresented], and sexuality quotas [with the vast majority as heterosexuals].
Afterwards another quota must be instituted to address the discriminatory under-representation of self-identified women with penises.
If "choosing according to merit" magically selects only straight white dudes, your definition of "merit" badly needs examining because you're basically saying that straight white dudes are somehow objectively superior.
Nope. Its saying that only straight wide dudes were being properly prepared. Mandating board seats does not fix the qualification problem, it merely is equality theatre. Nothing more. A placebo for the dimwitted. But if you fail to see this its not your fault, you weren't properly educated and prepared to understand reality.
Want to fix the actual problem rather than have equality theatre, then make sure young women get properly educated, trained, mentored, etc and then we'll have honest actual diversity. Which is sort of happening, female enrollment in MBA programs is getting better and better each year.
Just get two male members to identify as female. It would hold the courts up for months.
"Though similar measures are common in European countries" - Er... no, they're not. There is no remotely similar law in the EU.
Are the powerful, white, greying power elites really that mobile that they'd up and move to another state? It happens, but not the way you're imagining. A smart person would check out the lay of the land before making a knee-jerk, anger-based life change.
Actually a smart person would know that you can incorporate in Delaware, become a client of a Delaware attorney (i.e. give him/her a modest retainer payment), pay for a service that is your legal mail drop and answering service in Delaware (a modest annual fee), and then you can run your business from and have offices in whatever state you want including California. Most US corporations, in general and fortune 500, are incorporated in Delaware.
The same folks saying, that 'gender' is just a social construct, have now won by insisting on physical vaginas?
... No really. Just say "I identify as a woman".
Game over.
why? Because the inter-sectional Marxists have swallowed a whole lot of contradictions and conflicting interest groups in their quest for power.
Opposing forces have behaved in a dumb "reactionary" pattern where they don't really change what they're doing but merely cite their disagreement with things. This is idiotic.
The point of intersectionalism is to conflate as many interest groups as possible with analogs of classical "class struggle".
The way to fight this is to not treat these various ploys separately and not appreciate the wider context but rather to hammer at the very glue that holds these groups together... which is generally a deceit that suggests that if you give X power then all these contradictory interest groups will get what they want.
So the black power groups will get what they want, the feminist groups will get what they want, the islamic organizations will get what they want, the hispanic groups will get what they want, the trans activists will get what they want.
It isn't possible to satisfy these agendas at the same time. Which is why in practice they're not satisfied at all. Look at Detroit. It went from being a mecca of blue collar success to a warren of endless crack dens. But the people that took power when that started are still in power.
Weird, huh? The only people that will ultimately get power are a few elites and some politicians and some political party here or there might pick up power. But the endless ranks of dupes that fuel this nonsense will get nothing.
Women will get nothing.
name the racial group will get nothing.
The various agitating ethnic religious factions will get nothing.
It is a big silly game.
And THAT is the weakness.
By declaring yourself a woman, you hammer on one of the more glaring incompatibilities in "intersectionalism" which is the conflict between Feminism and Trans-sexualism.
The Feminist movement holds that all gender norms are social constructs and that women should be advanced above men generally to address historic favoring of men.
The trans movement holds that gender is biological and that one can "feel" like a woman inside or a man or whatever indifferent to social constructs. And that one can shift between being "male" or "female" simply by citing yourself as one or the other. A medical procedure is not required, nor is changing your sexual partners, nor is changing your preferred clothing, etc. So a 55 year old guy in a suit can just say he's a woman according to the Trans sexual movement. He doesn't have to do anything besides that.
The feminists have predictably been giving ground to the Trans movement even though they make up at best something like .01 percent of the population or something. It is a pretty common tell with intersectionalism that individual interest groups will always subordinate their interests when they come into conflict with the collective intersectional power structure. This has already lead several feminist conventions to stop performing the vagina monologues. And quite a few of these things will have it openly cited that "not all women have vaginas".
This is the weakness of intersectionalism. The greediness of it to gather too many conflicting interests under one banner.
So don't attack any of the hydra heads. Attack the body that connects them. The hydra heads are endless. A giant waste of time to argue with any of these interest groups directly. Rather go after what gives them the national thrust they have... break up the alliances by forcing them into conflict with each other.
Short of that, intersectionalism will continue until the people primary interested in their own personal power have total control over everything... and then basically tyranny until systemic corruption and inefficiency destroys the society.
Either/or.
Here some zealot for the cause may tell me that a zillion contradictory interests can be satisfied at the same time. Not without divine intervention, bucko. Only one planet and one reality. The oppression pyramid is a pyramid scheme. Wise up.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
These types of laws have the opposite effect. Women on these boards will be seen as only having the position because the laws demand it, so they won't be taken seriously. This is a blow to female advancement, not an improvement.
It'll also stifle new companies. A group of male friends won't be able to form a public company if they can't find a female to help. And where is the corresponding law which says all female boards need a male member? I wish people in the government used their brains more for the overall benefit of the population rather than their own benefit.
I could have sworn this was the headline until I saw msmash.
Fines of $100K for first breach and $300K for subsequent breaches. Pfft just pay the fine - cheaper in the long run in many cases. Also, what's to stop the companies that do comply from making up some spurious board role that has no purpose and appointing a woman with no interest in the company who will stay away from any decision making (ie wives of the current male directors).
Bonkers.
Daughters, mothers, wives, sisters and girlfriends of the CEO & COO and chairman of the board,not to mention those of major shareholders & owners. Wonder how many "professionals" & strip... er...exotic dancers will be on boards in 2028?
This law actively discriminates against the right of men to run their company as they see fit, in order to balance some nebulous passive discrimination against women.
If women started businesses at the same rate as men, this wouldn't be necessary. But despite being less inclined to take risks, they somehow deserve equal rewards?
Fuck off. Your gender is not a golden pass into affairs you didn't contribute to.
Here's Mr. Damore posting as AC again....
"companies with five directors to add two women by the end of 2021"
What if the company has five directors two of whom are already women? Does this still require them to add two women?
"companies with six or more directors to add at least three more women by the end of the same year"
And it the company has six directors, ALL of whom are women? Does this still require them to add at least three MORE women?
I think the author of this summary needs to be more careful about their own assumption (pretty clear they assumed all boards were all men).
What about those who define themselves as female only on even-numbered days?
What about those who define themselves as Martians?
Seriously: What about those who define themselves as not stupid?
If the law doesn't also require at least one man on a board of directors, I don't see this passing a challenge that it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Yes there is a male-only culture in many places but this just replaces that with the same plus a token female - and legally enforcing a gender based agenda at that.
And that my friends (and enemies) is inherently sexist!
So California enacts Promotion By Gender to fight sexism :-D
Goodbye, California.
nope, not a bit!
I got censored from the Guardian for pointing out that a non-white female writer who won a Hugo would never know if she was the best, or merely the best available woman writer. In the same way a female director will never know if she is on the board because she is competent, or merely making up the numbers...
I wonder how it'll feel for some women to never fully know if the reason they're on a board is because they have a vagina. what a setback for feminism.
Somehow I see this ending up with a male (sex) who identifies as woman (gender) filing a discrimination lawsuit against a woman (sex) who "wear the pants" [in the relationship / etc] and thus should instead identify as male (gender) taking her job on the board, and then the CA supreme court ruling that the one with the penis still gets the job.
So every woman from now on that actually manages to climb the corporate ladder and punch through the glass ceiling will be dismissed as the "quota bitch". Great work, feminists, turn your own movement of empowerment where women were supposed to become self-confident and self-reliant into a social program that reeks more like a hand-up for handicapped people who can't accomplish anything themselves.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ya know how every time some Republican senator goes on a rant about the homosexuals, sooner or later he's caught in a public bathroom with a dick in his mouth?
Fits that old saying of "Methinks thou dost protest too much"
You got anything you want to "come out" with?
Nice attempt at character assasination, as if Mr. Damore did a damned thing wrong. Well, he worked at Google so he did at least one thing wrong.
Now, how about going back and actually refuting the argument instead of acting like an immature twerp, ok?
The main problem with how management is selected, is that "merit" is actually an excuse for a system that is really more like aristrocracy. If you force management to add women, it won't change much, since nobles, naturally, have an amount of women roughly equal to those of men. However, if you forced nobles to add people from outside their circles, that would be much more interesting.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
Reaching certain positions and mainly in big companies is usually a result of multiple factors which might be easily defined as quite arbitrary. It doesn't seem that a new arbitrary element can hurt much. Picking daughters rather than sons (half kidding, half serious)? Why not? Practically speaking, I don't see any difference. On the other hand, the ideas underlying these actions are kind of worrying (or better: sad), mainly because of not accepting their arbitrary essence and even expecting to be seen as some kind of fair/logical/sensible attitude.
I respect everyone's position on any front for as long as they are happy and don't damage anyone else. I wouldn't find any problem with people defending ideas on these lines in cases like this where there doesn't seem to be any real damage (a bit more of arbitrariness in an intrinsically-arbitrary sub-world). I could even accept actions of this sort to negatively affect me; in the sense of knowing that dealing with arbitrariness or unfairness is part of the far-from-perfect (AKA stupid) world in which we live. I might even accept someone I love/respect (daughter, wife, etc.) to be benefited from something like this, but only for as long as they are fully accepting the reality and are completely honest. I will certainly never respect a person benefiting from arbitrariness/unfairness in any way and trying to show it differently.
Ideally, I prefer to deal with absolute fairness, but I also understand that being 100% fair is very difficult. I even understand that, when being in a relatively advantageous position (and I consider that this is my case, for various reasons like having very clear ideas on many fronts), you see things differently. But a somehow unfair situation without honesty and (self-)awareness is completely unacceptable for me. So, did you get that job because you are woman? Congrats! You played your cards and got what you wanted! Now you can even prove that that decision, although intrinsically arbitrary, wasn't bad by doing an excellent job. But never dare to say me that you did deserve that, because you would be either lying or in-denial. A third alternative could be a woman seriously thinking that she isn't able to compete with others (to get a job like this in a country like the USA) without some extra help; and, in that case, I would just feel pity for her.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
MORE SEXUAL DISCRIMINATION!
Who'd a'thunk it?
What about "transwomen"?
I mean, what if one of the people on the board "identifies" as a woman?
Pathalogical altruism...
Fuck logic, reason and equality! MUH FEELZ!
And we've now left the realm of "gender equality" and entered the realm of "female supremacy".
Just give them shit for an accident of birth...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Because the law requires at least one woman, but not at least one man the law is unconstitutional. The 14th amendment requires equal protection under the law, and this law clearly does not provide equal protection.
It's interesting that now it's the extreme left wing that's suddenly creating unconstitutional, unequal laws in the US that infringe on peoples rights. That used to be the job of the extreme right in the 1950s!
There is no glass ceiling. Just women who get pregnant and have to take time out.
Then I guess we'd see more women without kids on boards.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Are there any all female boards?
"I hate what you're doing but either cannot say what I really think or cannot think of a reason why what you're doing is bad."
What is WRONG about forbidding all male boards? NOTHING.
What you COULD ask is what about any all female boards. But you don't care about equality or feminism, you just hate any woman getting anything when you have nothing.
are ruled out, too?
"I now live as a trans woman."
Any physical or behavioural criteria for limiting womanhood would be transphobic, so no one can question this declaration even if you change absolutely nothing about yourself.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Care to answer the post rather than move the goalposts? Or are you incapable? In which case you should never be employed. After all, we want "the best person for the job" and there is not anyone who would think that making a different claim is an answer to a question about the previous one. That makes you ineligible for ANY job.
What about other genders - not sure how many are there but if you go then all the way.
All they assumed was that the claim that there was any "meritocracy" at play is a load of ignorant bollocks. Care to prove that is wrong? Or do you want to pretend what you want to be the case because that strawman is easier to argue?
They're only doing that to fend off muslim terrorists. I seen it in a tv show.
who is a woman ? At the end the board meeting may go like this:
Chairman: och and one more point on agenda, We failed again to find a good female candidate. What do we do about it?
member1: I think I can wear a bra - will that suffice?
member2: I do not mind, registering as one, not that it makes such a big difference but my car insurance will be cheaper.
Chairmen to member2: ok, then it is decided. I thought that would be more difficult.
Free Software developers of the world, open your eyes! Our communities are being raped, our work pillaged.
Detestable villains - mean spirited, bigoted, belligerent, vicious - are using underhanded tricks to force hypocritical "Codes of Conduct" on the projects we built.
The only purpose of these CoCs is to allow so-called "Progressives" to conduct witch hunts against anyone who opposes them. Thereby they plan to steal our work for their shadowy corporate paymasters.
You can readily tell these CoCs are not about "just being nice" - because they are ALWAYS supported by the very LEAST NICE, most aggressively mean and shamelessly bigoted people you can imagine.
If a project to which you contribute has been raped by CoC-mongers there is a simple solution: WALK AWAY. Never contribute again. If you have a patch almost ready, count the time you spent on it as a loss and throw it away. If you see a security issue, remain silent and do nothing. IT'S NO LONGER YOUR PROJECT. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME THERE.
If you are evaluating new software, don't even consider any projects burdened under the tyranny of a CoC. It doesn't matter if they are technically superior - just don't consider them. Never be openly political, always make up a technical reason for rejecting CoCed projects.
Don't argue in public about the CoC. Doing so only exposes you to needless risk. You might be dis-employed, blackballed, and even set up for a #MeToo purge. Just stay far away.
Comrades: Individually we are powerless, and easily crushed beneath the iron boot of Corporate Social Just-Us. But together in solidarity we are millions and we are strong. The Internet itself depends on our collective labor. If we stop working, the internet stops working.
Free Software developers, save yourselves and save your communities! Just WALK AWAY from any project with a CoC. Without our labor they are nothing.
We offer practical innovative solutions to businesses for growth and turnaround at an incredibly low cost.We will be with you at all steps to help your business start, grow, turnaround and expand globally, at a very reasonable cost in a timely manner.
Leader of the Free World my ass.
Now there is a new all-female profession in California: a board member, no qualifications besides anatomy required.
But all female boards are fine.
It is 2018., when on Planet Earth we call it "equality".
I'm very Steve Jobsian.
1) Twitter, Google, Facebook, Amazon can censor and manipulate everyone, because they're private corporations. Tyranny established by a handful of country-sized megacorporations is completely okay. Private corporations are perfectly allowed to discriminate for political reasons when it suits the left.
2) A tiny bakery has to bake that cake despite having religious objections to it. Private corporations aren't allowed to use discrimination against when it suits the left.
3) Californian megacorporations are now forced to include people they may or may not like in their boards of directors. The government telling corporations who to employ is perfectly allowed when it suits the left.
The left has power as their only guiding pricinple. All else is just smoke and mirror to bait disadvantaged people into giving them power. No one who was really disadvantaged had lasting improvements under leftist government. Leftist-ruled districts are the worst districts of the country, and that pattern repeats all over the world, for over a hundred years. The left garnering "disenfranchised" votes, consolidated power, made the situation worse for everyone and then clung to power by disenfranchising everyone and using totalitarian instruments to protect it.
This is a clearly illegal, discriminatory law. It basically gives state sponsorship to the binary gender system which has been clearly demonstrated and scientifically proven to be a psychological disaster to the human race.
"...despite numerous independent studies that show companies with women on their board are more profitable and productive". Usually those kinds of studies have a predetermined conclusion and they cook their results to fit it.
Good luck making decisions!
Y'all realize that this headline/summary contradicts itself right?
This asinine law will not result in all-male boards disappearing from California.. It only targets "publicly traded" companies.. If a corporation is not publicly traded (and the vast majority of them are not) then this law does not even apply.
It's like laws that target companies with 50+ employees. Most companies don't have that many employees...
Typical California don't just equalize the playing field, make laws demanding special hiring practices. I don't believe in making companies hire to meet a quota. I think they should accept all applications and hire who is correct for the job.
Can we also have a law that says all domestic violence shelters must admit at least one man, or two men if they shelter five people, or three men if they shelter six or more people?
After all, studies show that (at least, in heterosexual relationships) men are slightly more likely than women to be the victims of violence.
I am glad there is finally some progress here.
But am sad how much 'stakeholders decide' and 'best candidate' attitude there is on the site.
If you are a white male, you are the most privileged race/sex combination on the planet. Congratulations. All the advantages are yours. If you don't want to concede even a small amount of this power to others, you are probably a white supremacist.
Also, we are in a real world where the vast majority of the positions of power are controller by white males. This means the best candidate will almost always be another white male. All rungs of the ladder to get to board member status favour you heavily, because they are populated by white males. And even if they weren't, you would probably pick the white make candidate, because you trust your own.
So what are the solutions?
1. You are happy with white males always being in power. In which case, fuck off.
2. You attempt to shift these positions of power to being more representative of your society. Here they are talking about a max 20% change away from all white male. I am sorry this scares you so much. I'm also sure you are ready to gang up and bully the poor woman. Your president does it. Your congressmen do it. Your upcoming supreme court judges do it. So relax.
Marx isn't "The left". FFS, even during his time, Proudhon was a big proponent against him. Frigging idiot right wing nutjobs have no clue what is going on and are fucking PROUD of it.
It's like they looked over at Zimbabwe and said "Hold my beer..."
I recently changed my gender to "fucking white male" in order to enjoy the plethora of its privileges and now you tell me that I can't?
Oh well... I guess I'll have to go back to "attack helicopter"
This is the logical outcome of decades of mush headed thinking.
Ideas have consequences.
First the eggheads think it ... then the kids believe it ... then next thing you know some commissar is telling you simultaneously that 1. gender is only a social construct, oh and 2. also you'd better get some ovaries on your corporate board.
Every ethnicity should be represented, every age group, every nationality, every political view, indeed every minority whatever the criteria may be. This is the age of the internet, it can be organized. If we are going destroy ownership privileges let's do it right.
Instead all you did manage was to show how right I was.
empathy-plagued, non-sociopathic, non-ultra-rich, non-asshole who might actually feel and express guilt about the crap the company does? Having one woman on the board adds no diversity if she's a Leona Helmsley clone.
(captcha = 'compels'
Tokeena. In 3....2...1...
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
If a Robert James Johnson, director, check marks F instead of M in the forms, it will meet the requirement of the law.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
be made worse with another non merit based system? Since you never demanded any laws to make the current system merit based, the lack of merit basis for this one is likewise irrelevant. So why are you whinging? Because you, having fuck all, hate it when some woman somewhere may be getting something. Even if it's something you will never ever have.
Also you dont actually make any contrary assertions to my post. Given you completely and utterly failed to find a counterpoint but still preen yourself as if you had, you clearly are not using any form of logic here.
Proof that hate and jealousy drive you.
Fuck, I won't ever get on a board. Therefore this law doesn't hurt me a bit. Hence why I don't give a shit. If a law to make directorship merit based were being proposed, I'd be for it, even though it still would not let me get that job. But if that law were being blocked, I'd be against, despite it not helping me still. Why? Because there's a rational reason for either stance.
There is NONE for yours.
All publicly listed companies will be equally disadvantaged by putting females on the board. It's like when your a kid playing sport and one team doesn't have enough players.... The other team is forced to play with one less player to make it even and one player sits on the bench and doesn't get to play. #fair
I can see this happening...
On one end, we're not supposed to select candidates based on sex, color or religion. On the other end, we're supposed to pick a person based on their sex... What about women fighting their way to the top by having the right skills? do legislators think women are so weak they need to be helped by legislation? In my 29 years working, I just haven't really seen many women that interested by this kind of position and the personal and family sacrifices they entail. So that means that companies will have to pick women out of a small pool, which means they'll do compromises and get the wrong people on the boards and people will then blame these women.. It would be nice if we were able to vote-ban politicians when they come up with something stupid.
because some of those all male boards who created some of the largest and most successful corporations in the history of humanity could have been SOO much better if a vagina sat in a the board room.....
This law will not stand even the simplest of court tests. Most of these big companies take tax breaks from the State, it would be better to tie this to tax breaks and make compliance voluntary. In other words, you get to keep your tax breaks if the board meets the State's expectations. So, no fines, just a loss or gain of bargaining position for breaks.
Companies moving their headquarters out of California.
Forget merit! SEX is all that matters... but then again, sex is only a social construct... They are so full of crap.
we need a law that states that 50% of miss America contestants be males! It's only fair after all. Women have dominated the miss America pageant for to long!
4 directors rather than 5 can do the directing just a good. Just reduce it by one and redeem your company from dictatorial government rule.
I just want an easy promotion. What if I identify as female?
So if the board is exclusively female that is okay but it the board is exclusively male then we have a problem? What about minorities?
This law is sexist.
What about a balance of liberals and conservatives? Christians and Jews and Muslims and Athiests?
...biologically determined at birth, genetically encoded in human chromosomes, and no amount of cosmetic surgery or hormone treatment will change that.
Stating obvious biological facts has become a "hate crime" to the left.
You misspelled "impossible to make all the commentators kowtow to my Social Justice Warrior dictates the way I'm able to in other venues."
Yeah, right up until this very moment, money, family connections, social status and pure patrician snobbishness had nothing whatsoever to do who got to sit to sit on the boards of all these corporations. It was a pure merit system all the way, with no reason at all to question whether a board member got his position because he was absolutely the best man for the job.
And, of course, it's not like people who want to keep corporate boards overwhelmingly white and male already question whether any woman appointed to board membership got the job because they earned it rather than slept or "quota-ed" their way into it.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Same crap happened in the 1990s and 2000s. You had to have your racial quotas. What companies did was just offshore everything, and their "diversity" was handled by boatloads of H-1Bs. The diversity problem was settled quite well. You either were Desi, or you were replaced by Desi.
The blowback from demanding women, merit be damned, will be similar. Companies will move headquarters, or just leave a token system in place in CA, while moving their offices overseas.
And why only women?
Please temper your fake outrage. You already know the answer to this. Not every region of the world has people of every race. There are rural areas in California where you won't find many people of color or of a specific race. However, women are well distributed across every region of the globe.
As a white male, I don't care much about affirmative action. I am pretty sure I have never been denied a job at the expense of whatever group that some body has deemed underrepresented. You can debate about the fairness of measures like this, but I am very confident I and presumably you have not been measurably harmed by programs like this. There are plenty of jobs for men elsewhere.
As others already pointed out, you just have to have 1 woman on your board. Really? Is that so hard? You can't find a single woman somewhere who is as qualified as a man? They're over 50% of the population. Surely someone somewhere is in the same league as the wanker you originally wanted to hire for that last seat.
Finally, it's a free country. If you don't like it, I would suggest voting with your feet. I am confident you won't see any laws like this any time soon in Alabama, Mississippi, or Florida any time soon. Have you considered moving your corporate headquarters there? If you want to take advantage of the tech savvy, liberal-oriented California-based labor pool and VC market, I guess this is just the cost of doing business. If you can do fine elsewhere, I would suggest you move. California is crowded enough already. They'll do just fine without any company that cannot tolerate having 1 woman on their board.
This is a scenario where you should just let the market decide.
that women need special laws and rules that favor women and that women cannot compete on a level playing field based on merit or ability. If having women on a board is such a great and wonderful thing, then every board would choose to have women members without threats or penalties from government, because if they did not do so then they would obviously be at a disadvantage and would not be competitive and would soon fail and lose out to companies and organizations who had women on their boards.
Once you get your own channel, you don't get to complain anymore. Besides Sabado no es gigantico en Gringolandia. Given the choice I would spend my Saturdays in Mexico.
Try watching Korean TV. Nothing but koreans, every now and then you get a european or american character but they are mostly comic relief. Still really good TV.
Nice Logical Fallacy you've got going there, MrL0G1C.
I agree with you on principle but I don't understand how else to overcome the good old boys' club. They already don't hire the best people. They hire the people who are "good" from good schools, good families, have good names, and of course, are well connected socially. It's a big circle jerk to protect the fragile egos of the self important jerks who run companies.
Excellent plan! So now, the sole woman on the board can safely be referred to as the token female board member (no matter her qualifications).
But where, you may ask, should these companies go to find qualified female candidates??? I'm not too worried. I'm sure the wives, girlfriends, and daughters of the men on the board will do just fine.
Not good, enough, you say? No problem. We just need more laws! Or maybe we can should just have the all-knowing legislative geniuses in power choose the board themselves. Cause, you know, apparently they know best how to run a business.
Am I right???
Might makes right irrelevant.
This is not 1980. As weird as it may seem, I remember a time when newspapers had separate sections labelled "Jobs for Men" and "Jobs for Women", and any female applicant walking into HR was automatically given a typing test. Women in my generation were having none of that, and the ones entering management (and their successors) have long since climbed the greasy pole to the top.
Have we reached parity? No. Boards are still almost always majority male. And if the law required parity in male/female representation, that would be a huge change. But the law sets a standard that most of California's largest companies already meet. That is no accident. No politician is going to want to piss of Walt Disney.
There are few large companies that might need to add another director or replace the next retiring male director with a female one. But the world is heading for parity anyway; the law basically says you can't remain a statistical outlier.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
... become a Delaware corporation, or Nevada, since it is closer to California.
Think companies don't move when states have stupid laws? Boeing moved to Chicago. Amazon is looking for HQ2.
But need a law to get them jobs. How about getting more women in garbage collection or sewer repair?
FUCK YOU CALIFORNIA!
It will be interesting if you can say that you identify as a woman to cheat these requirements.
If they complain that you still look and act like a man, tell them to stop pushing their gender norms on you.
problem solved. We don't have a board of directors here, we just have a conclave
One from 18-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61 retired...or just divide say 60/# of directors to get range.
Since when does lumber need breasts?
If this really is a temporary measure to improve the situation for women in the workforce, then the law should contain a baked-in expiration date and verbiage to prevent the slippery-slope of including race/etc. from being tacked on it i.
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
All court boards...
PUC....
All Congressional Committies....
All County Boards...
All City Boards...
Public Pension Board...
Insurance Commision Board...
How do we KNOW who is male? who is female? who is other? who is both?
I can't wait for them to have to prove that in public!
"Okay Bob, we're going to have to ask you to take one for the team..."
Anybody can start a corporation, including women. Why can't we just encourage women start their own businesses? Why force existing businesses to change the way they do things?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Next up: overreaching California government mandates shareholders must sit boy-girl-boy-girl at meetings.
No, this is about "Equality of Outcomes"....pure and simple.
Hijack, because you can.
Get yours now, before the mob rule winds shift...
..is this so shocking and newsworthy? My hell, its california. chicago (IL) will be next, then NY.
Diana Moon-Glampers, the state Handicapper General is anticipating the need to hire dozens of staffers.
At this point I expect this sort of thing out of California, the big question is how long will these dumb laws either stay on the books or be enforced. In this case I will guess until Business decides to pack up and move states with less authoritarian state governments.
FULLY SUPPORT this. Board seats are like embassador assignments. There are no real qualifications, and as such, have become a "country club" of men. Diversity can and should be mandated, and the STATE has to do it. Fantastic law.
That ofcourse is just blatant moronic. So you need to have at least a femame on board, even though she might nog be suitable for the job.. Does this also mean that a board that consists of only females should also have at least one male? because if that's not specified in the law, than the law is disciminiatory.. The board should consist of suitable PEOPLE, not specify a gender..
This is really just a stupid law..
What happen if a 6 body board has 5 female and 1 male?
Unless there is a requirement to have a man on the board, then this is blatant sexual discrimination and will hopefully be struck down by the US Supreme Court.
I see companies getting around this by having one of their board members identify as female when asked. Boom, done! And prove otherwise California.
Corporations are not creatures of the state. They form voluntarily to make a profit. They do not exist nor are they obligated to provide anyone with jobs and opportunities. Yes they are subject to some reasonable governance and regulation, as are we all, but nanny-state dictating who or what kinds of people can associate or must be on boards of directors is neither. How a company is led, run, and governed is nobody's business but the owners and shareholders. It's no different than my own individual personal liberty and freedom of association, in that what I choose to do and how to do it and whom with day in and day out is none of the state's damn business. They don't have a legitimate say in the matter outside of criminal activity. You don't like it? You want to see a company run by some radical feminist majority, or whatever other toxic grievance class you've contrived, as if that is just some de facto unchallenged sacrosanct societal goal as a matter of course? Then start your own damn companies and try doing it that way. It's an open economy and nobody is stopping you. What the hell makes these grievance groups so damn deserving anyway to have government intervene and force un-earned advancement and placement for them? F'ing liberals. Their every goddam solution to literally everything is bringing the state in to order about and force everyone to comply, to which the answer should always be a resounding "Go to hell". All they talk about is "equality", a Marxist bullshit word, as if that is something to be engineered by our perennially incompetent government. We have a government to protect our liberty, which is what leftists always resort to stomping on in pursuit of their inane concept of equality. They could care less about anyone's liberty, which was basically the entire point of the United States.
But with insane proposals like Sen. Warren's Corporate Accountability Act, and the leftists collectively (that figures) losing their minds to typical tired-ass authoritarian anti-liberty marxist bullshit, evil ideas like this out of California are not surprising.
I tend to share this basic attitude, but you need to remember that we are not talking about a mere group of people. This is a very special group of people who are petitioning the state for privileged treatment that most people don't otherwise get. These are corporations, with special legal fiction and limited liability. It is our law that they cannot and will not be treated like everyone else. They voluntarily enter into this situation, because they want the perks that they otherwise wouldn't have.
There isn't any ethical reason that the privileges can't come with conditions.
If you're going to argue that publicly traded firms shouldn't be forced to have women on the boards, I think that also opens up the debate that the decision-makers at those firms shouldn't face the same consequences for their decisions that you and I face as mere individuals. It opens up the debate as to whether or these fictional entities should have natural immortality. They're asking a lot. There might be good reasons for these special favors, but the whole arrangement is orthogonal to liberty. If you want liberty, you can have it: let your business be sole proprietarship.
In a natural state, you can own a rock by holding it. You can own a place by physically defending it. You could own a clothes-washing business by hanging out at a stream and offering people your services for payment. But you can't own stock in a corporation without a government (anarchists will never possibly have corporations, much less publicly traded corporations), and it already has a set or rules and conditions that if printed, would stack higher than you stand tall. That government winks and pretends corporations are real, because we think it's a good idea, and to such a degree that it's worth infringing everyone else's rights by pretending the corporation is a real thing that you might not be able to make pay their bills.
If you wanna bring strict liberty into this, then maybe we'll renegotiate this whole deal from the ground up with liberty in mind. And that'll mean you'll be free to avoid having women on your boards, but you also might not even have boards or investors anymore. You definitely couldn't possibly have limited liability or insider trading prohibitions. A society that absolutely values liberty over all else, cannot possibly have those things.
The fiction of corporations is about maximizing some value other than liberty. It shouldn't look quite right through a pure liberty lens. It's a performance hack. If The People want to add gender equality as item #1279 on the list of values that publicly-traded corporations are intended to increase, how much crazier is that, really? We can go over the tax code and you'll find so many thousands of pages of incomprehensible arbitrariness that there's no way "have to have chicks in the boardroom" is ever going to be on your radar.
On top of all that, women are about half of all people. If you can't find competent women, that proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that you're not even trying, so it's not like the men they displaced were being selected for competence either.
If that law had demanded an end to all boards in the state exclusively consisting of white members, California would have exploded. Let the performance of this law provide evidence beyond doubt that the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action programs will be white women...
Did you just assume my gender? Keep your microaggression-focussed anti-LGBTQIA* laws to yourself. We also need to ensure that family pets have a seat on every boards, because kittens and puppies (and other cute pets are not exlcuded).
Let have everyone on a board, because diversity!!!
...with the transgender community?
"I'm a dirty white tomcat, enter my world..."
"Nope. Its saying that only straight wide dudes were being properly prepared." So a person's "merit" is based on what others have done to "properly prepare" him? If that is so, then it would seem the solution needs to be broader still. Your take is bigoted and insulting as it discounts the efforts of those who are discriminated against.
Nope, a person's merit is based on their abilities. However one's abilities are often highly correlated to one's training, and the easiest way to create a larger pool of people with the requisite abilities is to train them for those abilities. Waiting for natural born leaders and entrepreneurs to emerge won't work at a large scale; however numerous leaders can be created through training as the Army and Naval Academies demonstrate every year, both male and female leaders in a traditionally male environment.
Your erroneous claim of bigotry and discrimination is failing to see the forest for the trees. The discrimination is primarily based on a failure to properly prepare these individuals, a failure of the educational system and social safety net. The solution to the problem is education and preparation, not mandating token board members who may underperform and reinforce an ignorant stereotype.
And once again, the problem is being corrected in the sense that female enrollment in MBA programs is high and continuing to increase. These young women ARE RECEIVING training and mentoring TODAY. I am suggesting more of what is already working TODAY.
Anthrax already spotted that loophole three decades ago and tried to address it (while also avoiding inconveniencing the sincere) by making the perp commit. It's not a bad solution:
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It is my understanding there is no set size to the number of people a publicly trade company has on their board of directors. There are examples with 3, and I guess replacing one of those members with a woman is feasible, or possibly even adding a 4th member, although an odd number may be desirable for some boards to bread ties so we may see some 3 person boards expand to 5 person by adding two women.
But what if a publicly traded company has 1 member, it's possibly a weird situation and I can't think of any real examples. But it might be allowed by federal laws. What is perhaps more common are boards with 2 people where a publicly traded company started off as a partnership and the minimum ownership requirements of the company bylaws makes practical for only the original founders to still retain a board. This is perhaps more common with older companies that have passed on through a family.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Wow that fuckterd --yes spelled right
brown doid it again..
now like trump, we are all fucked..
what ever happend to the notion, right skill for the right job, for the right person..
Now, you better hire me because I have a par of tits.. I showed then to Jerry and he sez Hire me.. so what the fuck ya gunna do?
Government mandated equality of outcome is at least as evil as institutionalized racism.
Idiocacy is here
When will the dope heads in Cuntifornia realize that they are are part of the U.S.A.? Huh? Really, For those of you who were publicly educated, The Federal Government controls Interstate Commerce. Any company that does businesses between states is out of the control of state laws limiting businesses.
Imagine that you start a company yourself and you appoint your first officers who are you good drinking buddies who you created the firm with. Now, you would have to go find a slut to be on your board? Go find a Dr Blaisey Ford to join you? Really? ROFLMAO as left-wing Communists.
They already don't hire the best people. They hire the people who are "good" from good schools, good families, have good names, and of course, are well connected socially.
Way to contradict yourself:
good schools,
good families,
have good names,
are well connected socially.
That's what the best people are for a company board.
Marxism is what happened.
"What happened to simply choosing the best candidate for the job instead of meeting quotas?"
Marxists don't believe in that. Cultural Marxists in particular are on the march these days - to the hard-core Marxist EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL and all positions of power need to be allocated/assigned by government policy. The politbureau will decide who is on your board, and you should count yourself lucky if they do not further alter the deal...
"And did that law seriously just assume the gender of someone sitting on the board of directors?"
Yup. Kinda clashes with all that other leftist drivel about genders being just social constructs and completely fluid doesn't it?
In fact, it also clashes with the recent trend of eliminating gender questions on government forms or allowing people the option to specify something other than M or F (even on birth certificates). Never let it be said that a leftist would allow a hard biological fact to intrude into zhe's social agenda...
Action
- California child lawmakers make new law so California children feel happy and vote for them
Re action
- Voters VOTE the children out, watching as their jobs flee to other states
Good luck with THAT!
Actually a smart person would know that you can incorporate in Delaware, become a client of a Delaware attorney (i.e. give him/her a modest retainer payment), pay for a service that is your legal mail drop and answering service in Delaware (a modest annual fee), and then you can run your business from and have offices in whatever state you want including California. Most US corporations, in general and fortune 500, are incorporated in Delaware.
Yet operationally headquartered in their original domiciles, including states such as California. Wait for the wave of companies with subsidiaries operating in California wholly owned by other companies operationally headquartered outside of California and incorporated in jurisdictions such as Delaware, Nevada, or outside the US.
The situation at hand is like a tar baby, the law is like a briar patch, politicians are dumber than Br'er Fox, and occasionally people act the same way Br'er Rabbit did when thrown into the briar patch.
“Born and bred in the briar patch, that’s me,” laughed Brer Rabbit. “I told you not to throw me there. In all the world, that’s the place I love best!”
No, of course it wasn't. But up to this point, a woman on a board was someone you'd WANT on your board because you knew that she made it despite all odds against her.
Now, a woman on a board is the token bitch. No matter whether she fought tooth and nail to get there and deserves that position.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Then the problem is not one of gender but of cronyism. Because not being part of the "in-circle" means you will not have a shot at a board position, independent of your gender.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I see your point, but I think the solution is to make it clear the very idea that "earning" a place on corporate boards is a myth.
It might even make sense to turn the situation on its head, and make the argument that people choosing a woman for such a position will make damned sure she's qualified, because failure to do so will make them look bad. Then contrast such appointments with those of men whose only qualification is that daddy knows the CEO. Or cite cases where the companies only cared about an interlocking relationship with another board, and only one guy was available to attend the meetings of both corps without constantly flying half way 'round the world.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
In this case the problem still isn't sexism but cronyism, since gender doesn't matter. A qualified man would fail as much as a qualified woman if all that matters is whether your daddy knows someone on the board.
In the end, there's only two real possible outcomes. Either, and this would actually already be the best possible outcome, women who have the "right" daddy are now "eligible" to become part of the social club called board, or, and this is actually the more likely and possibly worst outcome, we see some token promotions where board members "promote" their wives with the explicit or implied order to "look pretty and shut up".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's fine. Just dress like a female that crossdresses as a man.
I think we both know how that's going to work out. Does anybody believe Ivanka Trump is qualified to be advising the "leader of the free world" about anything?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Well.... considering the quality of the leader of the free world.....
Snide comments aside, do you think that's not what is going to happen?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The law it self is sexist, how ironic.
Yes they count. They also do long division.
Have one board member "identify" as female.
If you can invent a practical and accurate objective test for that, please do. We all want such.
Otherwise people tend to hire clones of themselves.
Table-ized A.I.
Why not something more pragmatic, which would -in effect- result in the desired outcome? The goal is ostensibly greater representation and prominence of disadvantaged classes of persons. This implementation of a solution is arbitrary and largely naive.
However, one should look at "codetermination" as a much more practical solution. Defined thus:
"A concept that involves the right of workers to participate in management of the companies they work for. The law allows workers to elect representatives (usually trade union representatives) for almost half of the supervisory board of directors. It applies to public and private companies."
On its practical efficacy:
"Economists in the past four decades have produced a large literature trying to determine the effects that codetermination has had on the German economy, and while the results are mixed, more often than not, studies find that codetermination and “works councils” lead to higher wages, less short-termism, greater productivity, even higher levels of income equality (see here for a good overview of recent research). They may, however, reduce profitability and lower returns for shareholders, suggesting they lead to a shift in both power and corporate earnings away from shareholders and toward workers."
Dylan Matthews. (2018) Workers don’t have much say in corporations. Why not give them seats on the board? - Vox. Retrieved October 14, 2018, from https://www.vox.com/2018/4/6/1...