Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cdu-and-spd-agree-on-gender-quota-in-german-boardrooms-a-934155.html

Germany recently decided to openly legalize sexism in the decision to forcefully introduce a female quota in big companies.

As of 2016, 30% of all CEO positions are to be filled by women regardless of qualification. A female quota is about the most sexist thing you could do in a company. It basically forces you to hire women even if they are less qualified than men solely because they're...women. We immediately declared that we will not follow said quota and if prompted to do so, ask the state to sue us, at the same time declaring that every single € spent on those lawsuits will be hurting the state, not us.

A more sensible approach to the problem would be to favor women applying for a job if they are equally qualified as men (as we already do), but hiring people just because of their gender is ridiculous and out of question for us.

So affirmative action meets modern-day feminism.

Excellent. Or as the Germans might say, "Tokenism uber alles!"


('cept they probably wouldn't say "tokenism"... they no doubt have their own word for things that regress society)

All power to flame shields, this is gonna be a rough one.

If you want to stonewall your goverment, get as many companies based in Germany as you can get together and enter "a discussion of unpredicatable and indefinite length as to which companies will have female CEOs purely because they are women".

I figure you could waste a good 5-10 years on doing that before they lose patience, but by that point you've made your point and won anyway amirite?

Truly, this will bode well for businesses to be able to compete. Brain drain, initiated.

Well, shaisen. Mind you, here we call that sort of thing equality and anti-descrimination, so i guess people's mileage varies (scarily).

The MRA is strong with this one.

 Torga_DW wrote:
Well, shaisen. Mind you, here we call that sort of thing equality and anti-descrimination, so i guess people's mileage varies (scarily).

 Ashiraya wrote:
The MRA is strong with this one.

Those posts show exactly why it's a problem. A lot of people lack understanding of the entire issue and think that this is about equality whereas in fact, it's not. In the contrary, a female quota is incredibly discriminating towards women as it basically says "You are not good enough to get the job based on your qualifications, but hey, you got a vagina, here you go!". That's about the most sexist thing to say or even do. If you are in favor of a female quota, you're a sexist. Hands down.

As a company that's been actively strifing for more equality and has almost the highest relative amount of female employees at our level, we therefore strongly oppose any female quota in order to keep opposing sexism in the working field.

My wife's getting prepared for a long and tiresome lawsuit right now.

Why are you speaking for your company (we) on a 40K internet forum?

 Ashiraya wrote:
The MRA is strong with this one.

I don't see how wanting competent staff in a company is a bad thing.
A job should go to someone qualified. Not to meet some quota. This goes for everyone, not just women.

 Sigvatr wrote:
In the contrary, a female quota is incredibly discriminating towards women as it basically says "You are not good enough to get the job based on your qualifications, but hey, you got a vagina, here you go!".

No it isn't. What it's actually saying is "it is not plausible that so few women are qualified for the job, therefore the fact that only 11.7% of these positions are occupied by women must be because of sexism". Does this mean that some companies might have to look a bit harder to find a qualified female employee instead of just hiring the first man they encounter? Sure, but I seriously doubt that there will be any problem filling the quota with women who are able to do those jobs just as well as the men they were hired instead of.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I don't see how wanting competent staff in a company is a bad thing.

It isn't. You're just making the mistake of assuming that hiring rates for women are so low because they aren't qualified, rather than because qualified women are being turned down by sexist employers.

A job should go to someone qualified. Not to meet some quota. This goes for everyone, not just women.

And, as the article in the OP points out, this is not working so far. Saying "hire the best person" is apparently not enough to overcome the bias against women (and, in other cases, other minorities), so active pressure to fix the problem is necessary.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Why are you speaking for your company (we) on a 40K internet forum?

It's the Off-Topic section and sexism has been an issue for quite a few times in the past. I merely use my company as an example as it's not the only one opposing sexism, but the one I, naturally, am most familiar with.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
The MRA is strong with this one.

I don't see how wanting competent staff in a company is a bad thing.
A job should go to someone qualified. Not to meet some quota. This goes for everyone, not just women.

Precisely. If politics are interested in overcoming a bias, the "same qualifications, women gets favored" approach wins out by a long shot. By doing so, you actively counter-work any existing bias and still hire a person because of her qualifications, not because of her gender.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Precisely. If politics are interested in overcoming a bias, the "same qualifications, women gets favored" approach wins out by a long shot. By doing so, you actively counter-work any existing bias and still hire a person because of her qualifications, not because of her gender.

Except that "same qualifications" is impossible to prove, because no two sets of qualifications are ever literally identical. There's always going to be some difference, however slight, that the person making the hiring decision can point to as justification. The only way to force businesses to hire a particular group is to set a specific quota that can't be avoided.

 Peregrine wrote:
It isn't. You're just making the mistake of assuming that hiring rates for women are so low because they aren't qualified, rather than because qualified women are being turned down by sexist employers.

I'm guessing the evidence that nearly 90% of company boards are sexist morons that hire based on genitalia, rather than merit is just around the corner.

 His Master's Voice wrote:
I'm guessing the evidence that nearly 90% of company boards are sexist morons that hire based on genitalia, rather than merit is just around the corner.

Obviously there's no evidence, because nobody is going to be stupid enough to say "I admit that I violate hiring laws by favoring men". But which is the more likely scenario:

1) Women are rarely qualified for these jobs, and a 90/10 split is just because men are inherently better.

or

2) Women are qualified at a similar rate as men, but fail to get jobs they are qualified for because of sexism (whether an explicit "women don't belong here and we won't hire them" or unconscious habits and stereotypes).

I think the answer here is pretty obvious.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
It isn't. You're just making the mistake of assuming that hiring rates for women are so low because they aren't qualified, rather than because qualified women are being turned down by sexist employers.

I'm guessing the evidence that nearly 90% of company boards are sexist morons that hire based on genitalia, rather than merit is just around the corner.

Edit. I am a doofus.

This should go well, can't see it causing problems at all. No way they won't just make new positions or something to reasonably deal with these quotas.

 Sigvatr wrote:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cdu-and-spd-agree-on-gender-quota-in-german-boardrooms-a-934155.html

Germany recently decided to openly legalize sexism in the decision to forcefully introduce a female quota in big companies.

As of 2016, 30% of all CEO positions are to be filled by women regardless of qualification. A female quota is about the most sexist thing you could do in a company. It basically forces you to hire women even if they are less qualified than men solely because they're...women. We immediately declared that we will not follow said quota and if prompted to do so, ask the state to sue us, at the same time declaring that every single € spent on those lawsuits will be hurting the state, not us.

A more sensible approach to the problem would be to favor women applying for a job if they are equally qualified as men (as we already do), but hiring people just because of their gender is ridiculous and out of question for us.

Title needs fixing.

Germany is openly reducing sexism, by preventing men from choosing only men in the boardroom.

Please try to avoid such category errors in future.

Women in high ranking administrative positions in corporate have been nearly unheard of barely 20 years ago. A non secretary desk position for a woman in a large company has been open for barely 50 years, if that.

At the same time, 30% of CEO positions are expected to be taken by women by 2040 and not because of quotas.

The social landscape is changing, as it always does. Most attempts at increasing the rate of change by tinkering with the process from the top down end up not doing anything at all at best and messing up the whole thing at worst.

That, and I have an intense dislike of the state telling anyone how to run their business.

Steelmage99 wrote:
It could go hand-in-hand with the evidence of the truth of your own statement.

What statement?

Ludicrous law. Unworkable, unfair and unenforceable.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
It could go hand-in-hand with the evidence of the truth of your own statement.

What statement?

Edit.

Holy crap. I completely misread your post. I apologize

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:


Germany is openly reducing sexism, by preventing men from choosing only men in the boardroom.

Please try to avoid such category errors in future.

Your misunderstanding is easily understandable as it's a conflict that's most often viewed from an emotional point of view instead of looking at how it really works.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

At the same time, 30% of CEO positions are expected to be taken by women by 2040 and not because of quotas?

Exactly. It has already changed a lot in the last few years and it will change more. The main problem is that rationalists and everyone with an actual insight on the matter knows that it's a slow process. Politics are not interested in long-term solutions, they want "solutions" that aim at short-sighted, yet placative results that impress naive / biased people in order to gain favorable votes.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Your misunderstanding is easily understandable as it's a conflict that's most often viewed from an emotional point of view instead of looking at how it really works.

You could just as easily be talking about yourself there.

If only out of a general distaste for human misery, I certainly hope some of the posters here are old, old men who have already lived most of his years in a world somewhat agreeable to them. Otherwise they've got a great many years of lamenting a world that is escaping further and further beyond them and their ideals.

Positive discrimination is always a bad thing.

Women have different life choices from Men. Men and Women are not the same. I'm not saying that Women can't do the jobs that men do, well except for physically demanding jobs where it's much easier for men because of the way we are built. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule but I always find it concerning when you need to turn away great potential candidates to meet a quota. Surely it should be based on ability rather than gender, race or belief?

I'm not sure how a Woman can expect to work less hours, get paid the same amount and somehow progress further than their male colleagues.

Surely the costs for getting this established will outweigh the social benefit? How many CEO positions are there compared to the woman workforce?

Shouldn't the state concentrate on helping Woman who want to raise families and take time off work rather than imposing bias on their people for the benefit of a tiny minority?

When Britain declared the end of slavery, most people went, 'Hah!', and kept on with it. It took decades of bullying Spain, the Netherlands and various other smaller countries, thousands of lives of British seamen, a vast amount of diplomatic shennanigans with France and the USA, several wars, and a good century before its been more or less squeezed out.

Female emancipation has been a slow and steady progress over the last fifty years as a similar cultural shift has taken place. Attempting to legislate to speed things up in this particular regard though seems to be a counterproductive sort of thing that introduces far more issues than it overcomes.

Surely the other problem with artificial bias is that you never know when the prejudice no longer exists in society?

At what point do you choose to remove these biases because you've reached true equality and what evidence do you base that on?

I love it when privileged white males complain they're being discriminated against, I enjoy witnessing the self-pity.

 Medium of Death wrote:


Shouldn't the state concentrate on helping Woman who want to raise families and take time off work rather than imposing bias on their people for the benefit of a tiny minority?

The state is worthless in this regard for the reasons I pointed out above - they don't want long-term solutions, they want short-term solutions that work on easily impressable voters (i.e. most). Companies, again, take on that job. We, again, using us as an example, have an own childcare service for all employees. Highly professional educators, 5 languages, free for everyone. The result? A high amount of women who work with us. Women who pursue a brillant professional career and yet still decided to become mothers because they know they don't have to worry about daycare - among many other things. Flexible working times is another important factor - parents (of EITHER gender!) who work at us have more freedom in regards to working times. Your child is sick? We got our own doctors to have a look at. You need to stay at home? No prob. At the same time, make sure that, if you can fully work again, can support your fellow co-workers who covered your working time. Since we have introduced this system a long time ago, the entire working climate is very positive towards parents.

This is exactly what is necessary for diversity and equality at the work place. And the state downright and utterly sucks at it.

A good first step would be to grant tax advantages to companies offering such a service. We can afford providing it, but most companies can't because they lack the financial possibilites. Support those.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
I love it when privileged white males complain they're being discriminated against, I enjoy witnessing the self-pity.

Do you have anything to actually contribute to the topic besides your display of blatant sexism / racism?

I think this is sad. That is, it's sad that it's so difficult for women to reach those positions that something like this has become necessary.

That said, I am not certain if a law is the best way to go about it.

 Sigvatr wrote:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cdu-and-spd-agree-on-gender-quota-in-german-boardrooms-a-934155.html

Germany recently decided to openly legalize sexism in the decision to forcefully introduce a female quota in big companies.

As of 2016, 30% of all CEO positions are to be filled by women regardless of qualification. A female quota is about the most sexist thing you could do in a company. It basically forces you to hire women even if they are less qualified than men solely because they're...women. We immediately declared that we will not follow said quota and if prompted to do so, ask the state to sue us, at the same time declaring that every single € spent on those lawsuits will be hurting the state, not us.

A more sensible approach to the problem would be to favor women applying for a job if they are equally qualified as men (as we already do), but hiring people just because of their gender is ridiculous and out of question for us.

You are correct. This is clearly oppressive aginst women. It should be 50%.