It's now a law in Norway that large, publicly-traded companies must have at least 40% women in their corporate boards ... or risk dissolution:
"A woman comes in, a man goes out. That's how the quota works; that's the law," says Kjell Erik Øie, deputy minister of children and equality, in the centre-left "Red-Green" coalition government in Oslo. "Very seldom do men let go of power easily. But when you start using the half of the talent you have previously ignored, then everybody gains."
Businesses fought hard against the legislation, but they lost:
... even in Norway the quota went ahead only after years of ferocious debate and some resistance. As one male non-executive director who has survived the recent cull of boards put it, "What I and a lot of people don't understand is why it is seen as good for business to swap seasoned players for lip gloss?"
But such scepticism was not as widespread as one might expect. Ansgar Gabrielsen, 52, a Conservative trade and industry minister, and former businessman, is the unlikely champion of the quota. In 2002, in the then centre-coalition government, he publicly proposed a 40% quota on publicly listed boards without consulting cabinet colleagues. The law would be enacted in three years, he announced, only if companies failed to comply. The challenge was huge. Out of the 611 affected companies, 470 had not a single female board member.
Gabrielsen's reasoning at that time set the terms of the debate that followed. The quota was presented less as a gender-equality issue, and more as one driven by economic necessity. He argued that diversity creates wealth. The country could not afford to ignore female talent, he said. Norway has a low unemployment rate (now at 1.5%) and a large number of skilled and professional posts unfilled. "I could not see why, after 30 years of an equal ratio of women and men in universities and having so many women with experience, there were so few of them on boards," he says.
Funny how it seems so unthinkable to consider forced equality in areas where men are disadvantaged.
Unfortunately a law is necessary until it becomes the norm to have equal numbers of male and female employees at the highest levels of management. Why is it that I should be seen as a less valuable employee than a man simply because of my chromosomes? Women do have fewer opportunities than men despite what advances we may have made as a society.
Yes - to force someone to leave their job because they're the "wrong gender" is sexism.
You seem to feel it's a foregone conclusion that legislating away the symptoms of a problem will actually fix its root cause. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of affirmative action laws is at best unclear and at worst unprovable.
Lighten up guy (or girl as the case may be). Most of the countries of the world have some kind of affirmative action: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action#Implementation_worldwide
While I'm happy with the the idea of equality in the boardroom, this is the wrong way to go about it. Whoever is most suited to the job should get it, regardless of gender, should get it. A more qualified man losing out to a less qualified woman simply because there's 'too many men' on the board already is just stupid.
Here in New Zealand, the top three positions of power are held by women (Governor General, Prime Minister and Chief Justice, and until recently,
Attorney General). They got there by being the best person for the job, and not as a result of some arbitary quota.
Now, i have no reason for wanting only men, i just choose so because it is my will. then i find i have to take 40 women and leave behind 40 men.
someone explain that.
Why am I not allowed to not want women? It is my house, my business, my will. Who's to say who i need on my team or not. makes no sense, no free will .. :/
(rejection isn't that bad, without rejection there would be no major progress)
Forcing such things is madness. Encouraging females in boardrooms is a good thing, but you should employ whoever is right for the job.
Hey NORWEGIAN COMPANIES the USA would love you....COME HERE!
Your link lists 17 countries that practice affirmative discrimination.
There are over 200 countries in the world.
Consequently, your claim that "Most of the countries of the world have some kind of affirmative action" is invalid.
I believe creating in a system helping "minorities" to have doors opened and climb the social ladder, but enforcing it opens the Pandora box : after the sex, the skin color, the disability, why not ethnic groups, size, age, religion, political views, etc...
"All corporate boards must have 1.56% of female, petite, 23 to 26 1/2 years old, redhead from proven Scottish ascent, bouddhist, licensed in knitting, members"
Yeah, right.
You can't just wave a magic wand and produce female executives. It takes time to train them, and time for them to gain leadership experience.
However, for a position on a corporate board, there's no similar way to get rid of inherent bias. In a study where the exact same resume was sent out with either obviously white names or obviously black names, only the obviously white resumes were really looked at. Similarly, I would suspect that people would be dismissive of resumes with female names on them in addition to falsely perceiving, once they actually meet the person and find out that she's female, that there's something not as strong, or willful, or collected about this woman, just as the judges in the pre-blind auditions falsely perceived a lack of emoting and virtuosity when they saw the performer was a woman.
In the end, when these companies ignore half the talent in creating their corporate board, they're only hurting themselves.
You are right.
Women are usually better qualified than men. Therefore, it would be good to promote them to significant positions.
In fact, I would promote 60 % women and 40 % men, in order to change significantlly the present situation.
I would like to comment personally my opinions with any participant, in Messenger (my contact information is jaim3mur@hotmail.com).
Greetings from Spain, Jaime