Board members are about as far from representing society as you can get (and that's not the purpose of a board anyway) so I don't understand why this is being mandated. Seems like a strategy for cheap political points rather than any kind of well-reasoned reform.
This does nothing to further women’s rights but certainly does a lot to discredit the ones that deseved to be there by casting a shadow over whether they’re there to legitimize the board in the eyes of the law.
This legitimizes the question “was it the skills or the legal requirement”?
There is also a real concern with regulation like this is that the current climate of discussion is such that the negative effects are difficult to discuss in civil society. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people who object to this are sexists.
EDITED because I'd interpreted the article wrong
Adding other categories is actually worse than that, because it creates the need to specifically appoint an asian catholic female age 35-49. An asian catholic female in the 50-74 age group is no good because then the younger age group is underrepresented, a hispanic catholic female in the 35-49 age group is no good because then asians are underrepresented, etc. So the last board member not only can't be chosen on merit, they basically have to be ordered from a catalog of people whose function is to fit into whatever weird shaped box is formed by the composition of the existing board members. And if anyone leaves they either have to be replaced by someone of the same gender, race, religion and age or you have to discharge other existing board members and reconstitute the board.
What? You point out the problems with how dumb this law is and then turn around and accuse anyone of objecting to it being a sexist?
I’d prefer it if women could achieve this on their own because they’re good and deserve it, but so far society seems to be stagnating... and with the recent Kavanaugh hearing and what Trump says and who he backs, I fear women’s rights are in danger and role is receding. I’m very curious to see how this plays out and what meaningful changes (if any) come from it.
I am against identity politics on principle, but a much more amenable solution would have been something like offering tax incentives for companies who do.
But aside from being way too heavy handed for a state, are they planning to do this for every “protected” class? Why only women?
Women are the largest "protected" class and the most visible, so a good start on getting "protected" classes on more equal footing.
I feel like this will hit the supreme court like a lead balloon fortunately.
I wonder when the rampant cronyism among male-dominoated boards will discredit the men who are on boards for reasons other than cronyism...
I suspect a working-class Lesbian Asian Hindu is gonna find themselves in demand!
That said, I am skeptical that this passes Constitutional muster. California has no jurisdiction over corporate law in the rest of the US, and (for good reason) nobody incorporates in California such that they would have jurisdiction. This is a publicity stunt that will stir up outrage by various factions and accomplish nothing.
So a company that has a target market of men must have a woman on the board? So an all woman board will be legal?
How female is female enough for them? Can someone just identify as a woman, or will there be a mandatory screening of what's between their legs (or what their DNA has)?
I predict the outcome will just be companies will move headquarters to another state (already happening because of taxes!) and/or the company will go private.
Are you surprised if they don't? Should they be required to?
I actually agree with your point. I would mostly be surprised to see a man on their board. I also wouldnt expect legislation to require a man on their board.
However, the discussion also brings up the idea that a woman (and any other gender of person) could have expertise of value to that board despite their differing genderedness . The idea is like "You dont have to have cancer to be an oncologist" .
Still the idea of requiring it bothers me. I would have expected other forces to handle this situation instead of men w/ guns.
There are SO MANY reasons that women are not becoming leaders of companies at the same rate as men, and the glass ceiling is such a small part of the larger picture.
This seems like an unbelievable lazy and dishonest attempt at fixing a real problem.
First and hopefully last state, but I'm not optimistic...
> "despite numerous independent studies that show companies with women on their board are more profitable and productive"
The scourge of biased 'social science' strikes again. The politician believes that science has shown that women make companies better (but oddly, men don't make companies with all female boards better).
I've encountered a few studies over time claiming to show this. Every single one was junk. Common problems are:
1) No ability to replicate, e.g. citing private databases and then just asserting the outcome. This is a frequent problem with studies that come out of management consultancies and other such groups.
2) Dropping data points. One study I read that concluded women on boards = more profit started by excluding all the unprofitable companies from the analysis.
3) Confounding variables. It's typical for such studies to simply compare profitability against gender without controlling for other factors. For example they look at firms in the middle east (all men) and say, look, western firms are more profitable, it must be because of women. This is especially problematic when they include countries in the analysis where there are already laws forcing women onto boards - invariably it's the richest countries that do this i.e. those without bigger problems to worry about.
I have never encountered a study that showed with any scientific validity that companies make more money when they have women on the boards. Yet now these faux 'studies' are causing major law changes throughout the world.
This is of course exactly what the (invariably female) authors of these studies wanted in the first place. It is sickening and may eventually result in severe blowback.
As of August 2015, only 2% of S&P 500 companies had all male boards of directors
Is California trying to solve a problem that has already been solved?
A trans man is legally a man and would not count.
In California, transgender people are granted a lot of protections and rights, like the right to change their birth certificate gender, ID gender, etc. without surgery. It's one of the most progressive states on that issue.
But that said, the vast majority of boards are all cis males. That’s the real thing being challenged.
> 301.3. (a) No later than the close of the 2019 calendar year, a publicly held domestic or foreign corporation whose principal executive offices, according to the corporation’s SEC 10-K form, are located in California shall have a minimum of one female director on its board. A corporation may increase the number of directors on its board to comply with this section.
> 301.3. (a) No later than the close of the 2019 calendar year, a publicly held domestic or foreign corporation whose principal executive offices, according to the corporation’s SEC 10-K form, are located in California shall have a minimum of one female director on its board. A corporation may increase the number of directors on its board to comply with this section.
I'd like to imagine that most moderate liberals are seriously embarrassed by this kind of stuff. It seems from the thread that this is true, so that gives me hope that it's not all bad.
Imagine the job prospects of your average handicapped, transgender blasian lesbian? You could have your pick of any company board.
I kid, but I can't help but imagine there will be some unintended consequences of legislation like this.
It's best not to think about these things at all. What can you do, anyway? Suppress your mind's wandering. Focus on that algorithm on that refactoring, someone needs to get that work done, and it's you. You need that promotion. You need to make a lot of money for the federal government, for the state of California, and for your landlord, and you better make enough that there is something left to save. You don't want to look back in ten years and realize your youth disappeared while you were sitting in front of a monitor, you're still unmarried, you don't own a house, and you haven't had an independent thought in a decade, right? At least you've got to have some money saved up, that's going to make it worth it. So put your head down and get back to coding.
We don't care about your ideology, but we do care about not letting a minority of users ruin this site for everyone else by turning it into a political tire fire—especially given what's happening on the rest of the internet, which people come here for refuge from. The rest of the comments in this thread are bad enough as it is.
However, I disagree with the assertion that my comment was about ideology or politics. My comment was about the very concrete conditions of life of someone working in the tech industry in California, which is why I thought it may be of interest to the readers of HN.
The situation I mentioned is not about following this or that political faction. It is a threat to free discourse, to the ability to have an intellectual life, and to folks' actual livelihood. And it is certainly relevant to many people who visit this site or comment on this article.
The only connection to a particular political side was the work "against" in the first sentence. I regret that, and I have replaced it with "about". If, with that change, you feel that it is still possible to identify a particular political or ideological faction which is responsible for the danger I mentioned, that is not something I can control. I can only say that the boot may be on the other shoe someday, and I would still be speaking up against it.
As for the rule against using HN primarily for ideological battles, I was not aware of it, and I apologize. Would it be better if I started posting more technical comments as well?
Also, how does your interpretation of the rules affect users that use "throwaway" accounts? If a user makes a throwaway to talk about a controversial issue, that account may only have one post, meaning that 100% of its posts are controversial. Would that not prevent people from discussing controversial issues at all? Which, in the end, is the same as the advice I was offering.
It's sad to see the left becoming so intolerant. In this very discussion we see people claiming that it's sexist to be against this law.
Personally, I think the law should treat all people equally, not single out groups for favorable treatment.
Should I only concern myself with the long term history or do I have to worry about regressions mixed in? A lot of people thought they were on the right side of history with gay rights in Leninist Russia, it didn't turn out well.
Some level of mandatory female board presence seems to work OK in plenty of places elsewhere in the world without a great backlash. No visible campaigns to repeal because of the great damage or tokenism that's resulted.
And if an all woman board is okay, then what hypocrisy is this new law?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_representation_on_corpo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_representation_on_corpo...
For my part, I think legislation like this could be immeasurably improved if there was a sunset clause once parity was reached (in the state). Which would prove that this is only instituted due to the compete failure of the status quo of the old boys clubs.
Full disclosure: blokes opinion.
We're talking about a single board member. This isn't going to destroy companies. It's not going to force companies to do without the best and brightest, that's incredibly hyperbolic. If you really want to add a specific man, add a seat, or drop someone.
Especially since as the article points out, companies with female board members tend to be more profitable [1]. Correlation is not causation. On the other hand, there's no apocalyptic collapse coming because they let a lady into the boardroom, my lord, what's becoming of California?! I do believe I've got a case of the vapors.
It's really amazing how little empathy is being displayed here. I'm sure each of you would feel differently if 90% of board members were women. Maybe it's just the demographics on here? Maybe it's because as engineers we live in a world we can control by simply moving a letters around on a computer screen. The real world, society, is messy. It's not as simple as declaring meritocracy and suddenly equality arrives. Change requires making uncomfortable decisions, making compromises and taking real steps. And yes, rolling them back if they don't work out as planned.
Many people feel sexism, and bigotry in general is not solved by more of the opposite kind of bigotry. I feel their theory that it will somehow lead to more rolemodels is optimistic, but misplaced.
