Consider a business where 90% of applicants are female and 10% male. If the business chooses to hire 50/50, they are probably getting some sub-par males assuming the distribution of qualifications between male and female for the two sets of applicants are similar (which we don't have much reason to believe they differ much). In this case the females might be annoyed with the "special" treatment given to male hires that perform worse. And male hires might wonder if they got the job because they were well qualified or maybe just because they were male. In my opinion, this kind of "reverse" discrimination perpetuates bitterness and discriminatory thinking on all sides. I don't think of myself as a strongly religious person, but I think Christ had something when he was teaching that an "eye for an eye" was the old way, but the better way to live is to treat others how you want to be treated.
In scenario (1) otherwise qualified female candidates are overlooked during the hiring process due to systemic biases in the industry. Programs are instituted to reduce these biases. This puts men at a disadvantage (relative to the status quo), but actually merely equalizes the playing field.
In scenario (2) there are not enough qualified female candidates. If that is the case, then any program which increases the hiring of female candidates will likely cause the hiring of sub-par candidates, causing all of the issues you describe.
I can understand why people would object to (2) but I don't really see a problem with (1). I also don't understand why people assume that these programs actually lead to the hiring of sub-par candidates? I would think that Google's hiring practices would filter out unqualified candidates regardless of gender.
That means it's impossible to achieve a 1:1 gender ratio for all companies. A few may succeed, but only by heavily biasing their recruitment against men, since their recruitment pool of women is so small in comparison. Given the 4% number above, there will by 30 great male candidates for every great female candidate.
I don't think the argument ever was that unqualified candidates got a job. Rather, the reality is that if several candidates are qualified, and one of them happens to be a woman, she must be the one who gets the job offer, if a company wants to aim for a smaller gender gap.
Is this fair?
To some people this may seem perfectly OK (everybody was qualified; after that, it's more important to reduce the gender gap). Others might think it isn't (it's unlikely that the best of the qualified candidates got the job). In my opinion, both viewpoints are valid.
What personally irks me, however, is that someone was fired for asking the question. That was decidedly unfair.
