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February 1, 2011
Quotas for Women?
 A woman worth her salt ought to be promoted based on merit – few debate that. But it isn’t always enough. Frustrated that women make up less than 17 percent of delegates at the World Economic Form meeting, last week in Davos, Switzerland, the WEF decided to set quotas requiring a fifth of the delegates sent by strategic partners be women.
“I’m glad the WEF is taking a proactive stance,” Penny McIntyre, President of Newell Rubbermaid office products group, tells PINK, who discussed the issue on CNN.
“You might think we wouldn't need quotas, that companies would have senior women who would naturally attend. The fact that this isn't the case means more effort must be made to ensure diversity.”
The percentage of women delegates at the WEF mirrors the percentage of women in leadership roles across industries. A spokeswoman for the WEF said the quota is an effort to “nudge toward gender parity.”
Others who’ve instituted quotas have seen results. Consider Norway’s use of quotas in 2002, requiring public companies to allocate 40 percent of board seats to women. After seeing the results, Spain, France and Britain began considering similar policies.
Not everyone agrees: publications like The Telegraph and CNN's Fortune Finance ran stories opposing the WEF’s new rule, saying such “political correctness” isn’t the way for women to achieve equality. But others say, if the stagnant pace of female progress in the workplace has taught us anything, “gender equality any time soon will require a shove, not just a nudge.”
Bonus PINK Link: Now than women outnumber men at work, will the rules change?
By Cynthia Good
"We must get beyond debates about the merits of
affirmative action and begin to act in the affirmative." Gary Holder-Winfield
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Comments
Quotas for Women
As a woman in a male dominated profession I think this is NOT a good idea. You can not take what is unfair and make it fair by being unfair. And that is what female quotas are. I am an Oil and Gas Insurance Agent. In my office there are 8 male agents and me. I would hate to think that I was hired because the owners of my agency were required to have a woman on board which would have increased resentment amoung the men that I worked with and garnished little respect. And what if a man was interviewed having more experience then me? What if he lost the job opportunity because they were required to hire a female? It is true that I feel as a woman that I had to work harder and over come more and that is not fair but at the same time I realize that I would rather have to work harder then be offered a job that someone else is better qualified for just because I am a woman. Which is just as unfair.
Quotas for Women
Quotas for women isl be a good thing. Companies and women will benefit. It wouldl be a win win.
Quotas for women
I think it's naive to think that quotas are the solution. What behavioral change has ever come about -- and successfully been sustained -- because people were forced to do something. Also, this is typical of global diversity initiatives that sound great in press clips but fail to recognize the legal/regulatory climate of the U.S.where adhering to quotas when making employment selections remains illegal.
Quotas for Women
For a long time, I've mused about the value of legislating social change. Fundamentally, I recoil at the idea that any group should be entitled just because they are part of a particular group or class. As I write this response, I realize that a sense of entitlement actually is the basis of those who are in "power". For example, a white male boomer friend of mine (who's also a New England "blue blood" and college professor), said that unequivocally the majority of white men in the US have an sense of entitlement...there are no barriers of entry to anything they choose to take on. It's an institutionalized attitude. In other words, it's a tacit attitude that is so deeply embedded culturally that the majority (including the group that is directly affected) is unaware that a bias or prejudice exists . This notion of entitlement is applicable to any one group that holds the power.
So, the question is this: will those in power either relinquish or share it willingly? They might if they are either a reincarnation of Buddha or have reached nirvana. As such, it is necessary to impose a requirement that opportunities be made available for those individuals falling outside the "chosen" group. Should this quota persist indefinitely? I believe not. Once the shift in consciousness has occurred and it becomes a transparent issue, then maintaining it becomes counter-productive and unwittingly creates yet, another entitled group or class.
The risk is lowering the bar just to fill the quota. In no way should the requirements or standards be lowered. The slippery slope for women is navigating the labyrinth of career and family which is complex. We are going to have mobilize if we want to mitigate or reduce this complexity just as we did in order to move beyond secretaries (think Mad Men). We need to: (1) be clear about our professional goals and family aspirations; (2) work with our organizations to promote a family-friendly environment; and (3) have the courage to shed light on the institutionalized attitudes that limit our advancement.
Corporations will ultimately have to yield to increased pressure to advance women into leadership roles, to accommodate the rising involvement of men in the parenting role, and to global societal changes. Just look at what's happening at Davos.
Thoughts on gender quotas
I hate the idea of a gender quota, as I think it approaches the problem the wrong way. I don't believe that in most cases women are intentionally kept out of high-level positions. When I worked for large financial institution, I saw countless women work extremely hard to move forward their careers at the company until the point at which they started to have children. When many of those women came back from maternity leave, their priorities had changed and were no longer willing to work the long hours it took to be on the fast-track to high-level positions at the company.
I wonder if the limitation isn't about gender, but more about being the primary caretaker in a family. If we look at women in business without children and examine the percentage of that population who end up in high level positions, I imagine that the percentages aren't as skewed. If we want to discuss gender equality, we need to have a larger discussion about the family unit. If women are still the primary caretakers in the household, then there is a limit to the number of women who will have enough time to devote to climbing to the top of the corporate ladder.
Having children should not limit a woman's ability to be successful, but it often does. Maybe we need to ask ourselves if this is really problematic? Maybe we should recognize success as the ability to split one's time between child-rearing and intellectually stimulating office work - not just making it to the very top level of a company.
Can women help themselves as a majority in the workforce?
I see a huge loss in positive female leadership in the 35 year old generation of working women - As a 50 year old successfull professional, wife for 30 years, and mother of 3 happy kids - the sacrifices I made to prove I could work as hard as a man in the 1980s and get promoted repeatedly have been tossed to the side as these mid 30's Moms spend more time taking sick leave for their kids than being in the office or being engaged in work at all. It is perplexing that we have gone so far to "family balance" that people without children feel unbalanced with the inequity of "working Moms" and all the perks they get for giving birth. The right answer is somewhere in between but empty nesters and young childless employees feel frustrated with this inequity and somehow the balance needs to be restored and expectations need to be met at work too.