California wants to mandate a woman on every company board

State legislators passed a bill Wednesday that would require publicly-traded companies headquartered in California to place at least one woman on their board by the end of next year — or face a penalty.

Source: https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/30/pf/california-women-company-boards/index.html

How the bill works:

• All public companies will need to have at least one woman on their board by the end of 2019. Boards with at least five directors will need two or three women by 2021; the number will vary depending on board size.
• Apple, Facebook, and Alphabet already have two women on their respective boards, but may be required to bring on more. A company like Netflix, which has six board members—of whom only one is a woman—would need at least one more woman.
• Companies that don’t comply would have to pay a fine.
• Private companies looking to go public may be forced to diversify their boards before filing for an IPO.
• Organizations that oppose the bill argue that it only addresses one type of diversity and could be a violation of the state or federal constitution if, say, a company has to turn down a male candidate or swap out a male board member for a female one.

While I believe female representation is important, I think this is the wrong way of solving it. This will potentially hurt businesses in California in the long run; not because of females are not competent enough, but because of state government overreach on businesses. It's a priority for businesses to hire people that they believe are adequate for the job, and mandated positions could lead to discrimination of other applicants.

Those are my thoughts.

Heavy handed approach, I don't think I agree with forcing people to have a woman on board.

Love the idea. Women are competent leaders, but gender discrimination is a real issue. Men are unlikely to give women a board position because they are women.

Oh Christ. Gender equality is an issue, enforcement through governmental mandate is not the solution. That's absolutely absurd.

@Gaming-Planet:

Good for California! I think more states should follow suit on this. Bring on the inclusion!

Good idea. What ive realized is that people, aka voters are dumb mofo sheep. Policies like this need to be rammed down peoples throats otherwise nothing will change

Yes well as we've seen in the past..............nothing changes unless it's forced to change.

I think a better approach would be to give corporations some incentive for hiring women onto their board, that way it doesn't feel forced and gives them time to find the right woman for the position.

California is completely nuts.

So are you really saying that women who are more competent than men are being canned? because that is nonsense, a company will hire the candidates or promote the best and most competent candidate.

California and mandated women are insane and thank the pumpkin spiced latte for them not having a chance in hell of making this nationwide. Government mandated women lol, what´s next government-mandated men have to pee sitting down.

Pretty much. A lot of people hate the whole feminism movement right now, but history will frown upon those who were against it.

@Gaming-Planet: no incentives. If they really want an incentive, how about the incentive of not getting ripped to shreds after all the government anti free market regulations are gutted, ie patents, IP, contract laws, etc etc.

Dictatorships are better than democracies, there's too many dumb mfers out there who get to vote and shouldn't have that right. See the state of climate change regulations, exhibit A for a good example on that. Again, California has the right idea, ram this thing down their throats.

It'll be a lot harder for victors to sound like the "good guys" when we have the internet now to provide evidence and more nuance.

Is this really want women want? All these women that get hired as board members will probably feel insulted knowing they possibly got the job, not because they were better qualified, but because of their gender per law. Seems like an insult to women.

Most boards are captives of the CEO and management and offer little to no value. This is evidenced all the time by the total lack of oversight from boards and absolutely terrible CEO compensation practices. Indeed, many of these people are in a conflict of interest on this issue. Time and time again when things go bad you should ask: where the heck was the board? Nowhere. About the only time you get much value is from an institutional investment board member....and arguably that is the worst value since their interest is entirely short term.

As well, people collect board memberships these days like stamp collecting 60 yrs ago and cannot possibly provide anything to multiple companies across multiple industries. And this is only going to make it worse as the best women will be spread across more boards.

If they want to provide incentives for hiring, promoting, and otherwise fostering females in the workplace, I'm fine with that.

But I don't think there should be penalties.

That is dumb.

People should be added based on merit, not to fill some quota.

@needhealing:

The”feminism” movement already happened and it was a very good thing.

What we have today is something that old school feminists despise and competent women in general look down upon.

“History will frown on those who were against it”

No, history will frown on the insufferable people championing equality of outcome, on the misguided premise that it’s somehow morally righteous.

Because it’s not.

It hurts everyone.

@blaznwiipspman1:

“Dictatorships are better than democracies, there are too many dumb mfers.”

Thank you for being a great example of where this equality of outcome “inclusivity” can lead.

You’re so inclusive and about equality that anyone who doesn’t agree with your opinion doesn’t get a say, “ram it down their throats”.

Go the whole hog mate, the “retreats” for “political dissenters” aren’t going to populate themselves.

#notinmyprisoncamp

And the irony of your comment. It’d be hilarious if it didn’t bode so ill for society.

The problem is with gender and race the better candidates have been traditionally passed over because they weren't white males. Society does not change itself of it's own volition.

That is stupid. What surprised me is that this is being passed in California. I thought they were ahead of the times.

@mistervulpes: opinions different from mine? When is there supposed to be opinions on scientifically established theories? Of course if you're a right wing nut job like I suspect, you will automatically think theory doesn't mean fact. But guess what buddy, a scientific theory is no different from a fact. Having differing opinions on scientifically established theories is a dangerous game nobody should be playing.

That's the problem with democracy. Giving dumb mfers a voice when they shouldn't have one is a danger to society and civilization. This is the reason you can view democracy as a double edged sword. In an ideal world, scientifically established fact would be outside politics, but our world is far from perfect and we have no way to deal with dumb mfers.

Ultimately this is the reason why dictatorships are necessary. The voters aren't always right, freedom isn't always right. If you don't force certain things, nothing will change. If you haven't realized that yet, you're probably too young or too brainwashed.

I don't support quotas.

I used to be of the opinion that something like this was completely ludicrous. It makes everything about one's sex as opposed to the merits of an individual. But unfortunately, we live in a society where jobs aren't necessarily given to the best qualified person. There are both implicit and explicit biases in hiring that can be subtle. I don't know what the proper solution is. However, companies are private so its hard to dictate to them what they should do.

@blaznwiipspman1:

What scientific facts are you talking about and where is the literature to support them?

Without knowing anything about me you’ve assumed that I’m a “right wing nut job” so there we go with the unhelpful identity politics game. Screw being an individual.

And even more ironic, you’re calling me a nut job and, at the same time, saying dictatorships are necessary.

The difference of opinion here, and the only difference of opinion I shared, is that equality of outcome is not a good thing.

And it’s not...that doesn’t make me a political affiliation of anything, unless you’re a group identifying idiot.

And just to get our language tidied up...there most definitely is a difference between a scientific theory and a scientific fact.

That’s why they are two distinct turns of phrase.

But science doesn’t even factor into your original comment so I’m not sure why you even brought it up.

Your comment is so garbled and non-sensical, it’s hard to take any meaning other than:

You think equality of outcome is good... it’s not.

And.

You think dictatorships are good...they’re not.

People need to realize how true this is. And that it goes both ways.

While I do not agree with discrimination, this has the potential to backfire and cause people to accuse competent women of only getting where they are because of a law instead of their qualifications.

I truly believe California’s water supply was contaminated by a large amount of Soy and it has driven the entire state insane.

LOL

Californian time is not in step with reality.

Board meetings can be pretty long. They might need someone to make sandwiches.

If it's 2018 and you don't have at least one woman on your board then seriously, WTF? In actuality, that number should probably be about 50%. I'd be willing to accept a lower number given the labor makeup in given areas, what the ratio is of women attempting to land these jobs to men, and differing qualifications, but it still shouldn't drop below about 45% taking all of that into consideration. Women are not so unqualified as to not merit a relatively proportional share of those jobs, much less not even have one of them.

I thought hiring based on gender was illegal...

Lies!

Well I think that's a rational concern. And it's funny you say this, because these proposed rules are also a form of discrimination. If you apply for the job and you are a man you may get turned down because you are the wrong gender. Of course, if that is already happening then whatever, I suppose that means we're just legalizing it. And that can backfire. Because it's bound to upset a lot of people who are against discrimination.

What makes you think that, really? Do you think it's that widespread, that we need to apply this to all corporations in a country? Do you think men are less likely to give women a board position, or that people in general are less likely to? Is that feeling we have based on the percentage of women in charge right now? Because that may simply have to do with the number of applicants and their qualifications.

I'm not saying you're wrong, in fact I feel the same way you do about this. I think you're right that those things do happen and that it is more common than I'd like. But I don't know you're right. And that's concerning to me. Maybe you do know but I don't. I have no clue where I get these ideas from. I suspect it's just from people saying things online. Because if you would ask me if men are more inclined to want a woman on board or less inclined... I wouldn't really know. And that reminds me of how my grandma looks at people of color. All these assumptions but they're not based on much.

It's just that, I'm always hesitant with rules. And when a rule states 'based on the gender of...' or 'based on the skin tone of...' or even 'based on the country of birth... we can now do so-and-so to this person's life...' I almost feel like we should collectively shout no without even giving it thought. Because that goes against a lot of things that I stand for. To base a discriminatory rule that goes against our ethics on assumptions, sounds a lot like the past. I hope their idea is based on more than echochamber logic and fuzzy research papers. I think it's one of the most scary things that I've ever heard proposed because of where these things can lead.

I also have a problem with the fines system. The fines tend to be so low that companies would happily pay those fines if it means they can hire someone else. That happened when it comes to handicapped quota's around here. (Which I was against for the same reason.) They just hire healthy people and pay the fines. So I have serious doubts that this, if even ethical, would be effective.

Just Cali being Cali.

How's your pal Richard Spencer doing today?

Maybe less top-down power hierarchies. I have seen corporate hierarchies where they rotate who is in charge. Give people on the floor more say. Have people from the floor on the board like in Germany. That sort of stuff.

You make a beautiful argument that the hiring process is usually not based on merit already. I really like that one. We all know that 'who you know' is more important than anything else when applying for a position. I really like that one I am going to think about that.

@theone86: oh look.. another liberal thinking every white person is a white supremacist.

because white supremacists exist you think people are saying all white people are

and somehow you think we dont see right thru that as transparent as the cleanest glass there is.

@tryit: Yes.. some people actually think all white people are racist. That's actually a thing now.

Look at the title of this headline and replace it with any race as and see how it goes .

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/opinion/white-racism-threats.html

oh I am sure 'some people' think that but again...you are being transparent on this reply as well.

re-try

assume for a second I can read your actual words and I know your actual thoughts, then reply

@tryit: theone86 is one of those people. He thinks I follow Richard Spencer for christ sake.

nope.

try again.

you are not 'all white people' and you know it, I can see thru you.

@tryit: no I'm not all white people. Are you implying I'm a white supremacist? I don't get your point.

try again

you not being a white person is not evidence that he thinks all white people are racists.

see a pattern yet?

@tryit: I am white, that was a typo. German and Spanish to be exact.

His evidence is in his posting history. If you call out any injustice your against white people your a racist. This is a overly used tactic from the left and that's what hes doing.

try again

one being a racist does not mean one thinks all white people are white supremacist, stop trying to change the subject.

try again

@tryit: Actually both of you changed the subject. Hes a racebaiting troll and that's my point. Not sure what your babbling about.

he does not think all people are white supremacists, that is a lie.

if you want to make a point just make the point directly, no need to veil it in a lie.