Companies headquartered in California can no longer have all-male boards
money.cnn.com
money.cnn.com
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.
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.
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”?
This is a law requiring employers to discriminate based on gender.
The advocates of this law would probably argue that everyone discriminates all the time, including by gender.
I am on the fence. When I was younger I would have been firmly on the hands off libertarian side. Then I saw what a sham meritocracy can actually be and how much success is based on who you know. The more I saw of the high corporate and financial world the more liberal I became. Do some business consulting work and meritocracy starts to looks like survivorship bias.
So then why still allow all white boards? All Christian boards? All binary gender boards?
Unless maybe it’s just a shrewd political move.
Now they took the next step and made it into law. They completely removed any illusion of a fairness for the next appointment on any currently male only board. Which isn't to say it was fair until now. Probably far from it. Just that now it's unfair with the blessing of a law.
The point is this is not about liberalism. The target isn't to fix the inequality issues. It's a vote grab. Which is why categories with less voting power and more PR issues are largely ignored many times and by many people.
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?
Logically speaking it's the other way around. People who are for this law are sexists (they want discrimination on the basis of sex) and the people against it are the non-sexists (appoint purely on merit). Obviously it will be inverted in many discussions: Orwell didn't invent the term doublespeak for no reason.
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.
The US Black population is around 13%; Hispanic population is closer to 18-19%. Asian and Pacific Islander is around 5%. LBGT population is estimated at around 5-6%; transgender estimated at around 0.3%. Muslims are <2%, and Jews roughly the same. Old people, defined as those over 65, are around 17% and rising to around 24% because of the baby boom. Kids, defined as 0-14 years, are about 18-19%, and are unlikely to be in the company boardroom. About 19% of the population had some sort of disability, with the majority of those being older (50+).
In 2017, 80.4 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.3 percent of all wage and salary workers. Minimum wage isn't a protected class though.
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...
The law doesn't stop me from running each board meeting in the form of interpretive dance, either. As a board member, I would likely seek to fire that founder immediately in either case.
> "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?
But that said, the vast majority of boards are all cis males. That’s the real thing being challenged.
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.
> 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.
What is the problem you're 'trying' to fix that doesn't apply to any other minority?
It's really easy to sit there and say this law is sexist if you stand to benefit from the status quo. I'm not sure you do, I know nothing about you - this is an observation in general.
(2) We can have two problems. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to solve one. This is akin to the argument that California should be dealing with the homeless instead of banning straws. It should be, and is, doing both. We can have two problems. We can work on multiple problems simultaneously. And having two problems isn't a license to sit on your hands and do nothing until you have a way to solve both at the same time. Further, if this works remarkably well in some way maybe it'll be a good template for future change? Or a lesson as to why we shouldn't do it this way.
Have you asked that question and looked for a scientifically valid answer instead of jumping to bigotry?
There are many objective reasons for that, one being:
> Fewer women than men become executive managers. They earn less over their careers, hold more junior positions, and exit the occupation at a faster rate. We compiled a large panel data set on executives and formed a career hierarchy to analyze mobility and compensation rates. We found that, controlling for executive rank and background, women earn higher compensation than men, experience more income uncertainty, and are promoted more quickly. Amongst survivors, being female increases the chance of becoming CEO. Hence, the unconditional gender pay gap and job-rank differences are primarily attributable to female executives exiting at higher rates than men in an occupation where survival is rewarded with promotion and higher compensation.
> There is still a question of why women have a higher nonmarket outside option than men. One explanation is that women acquire more nonmarket human capital than men throughout their lives, and hence find retirement a relatively attractive option. Women in the top executive market are mostly beyond childbearing age, but there is evidence that such women are more likely to leave for personal and other household reasons than their male counterparts. For example, Sicherman (1996) finds that in a case study of a large insurance company, female executives were more likely than their male counterparts to exit the firm because of better working conditions elsewhere, to be near home, change of residence, household duties, personal health, illness in the family, and positions abolished. Most of those reasons, except position abolished, are voluntary departures related to home or family.
http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Gayle_Golan_Mill...
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.
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.
So we're clear, I'm in favor or wealth inequality, and income inequality, but only coupled with social mobility. I'm in favor of having wealth as a reward for your contributions. And for a 90% estate tax to make sure each generation starts off without major advantages. I'm for socialized medicine so the circumstances of your birth or random chance don't stop you from achieving your potential. I'm for creating a world where nobody feels they can't achieve some level of success because of societal norms and if that means temporarily creating 'mandatory' role models, that's fine too.
If the world were inherently fair, wouldn't you already expect corporate boards to represent the rest of the society at large? And yet they don't so someone or somethings' finger must already be on the scales. Unless of course you're telling me only old white men are capable of being board members, that is. So in the interest of fairness, we should push back. A little. See what happens. Then act accordingly.
See how this would fit with my worldview?
I have friends who are incredibly right-wing and absolutely disagree with me, often, and I very much enjoy engaging them in conversation. I don't think they're wrong, I just disagree.
I don't think you're sexist for disagreeing with this law. I agree with it. I have my rationalizations and justifications, and I'm interested in hearing yours, and as always, in debating.
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.
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.
"Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create them routinely. On HN, users should have an identity that others can relate to."
I honestly think there's a good chance your decision in this case goes against the spirit of the rules, dang.
Your account's history seems clearly to be that of a single-purpose political account, and we ban those. HN is for the gratification of intellectual curiosity, not the prosecution of political battles. Those two things are incompatible, so we have to be proactive about this.
Throwaway comments don't change the equation much. The test is this: if someone is using HN primarily for political battle, we ban them (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...). If they're occasionally commenting on a political topic as part of a range of intellectually curious interests, that's ok. In practice, these are two different classes of user: one is here for flamewar while the other isn't. There are always exceptions, but it's relatively clear where the line is. We don't want users who are here for flamewar.
Most users who create throwaway accounts to post political comments are just doing it so they can flame without restriction. We ban those. Earnest throwaway accounts are quite a bit rarer.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_representation_on_corpo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_representation_on_corpo...
A Danish state owned power company or some other local to EU, protected company, doesn't really have any effect on the world market, does it? It does not have anything to offer in terms of innovation or management skills.
Seriously, it's half the G20 with either mandated quota requirements, or a requirement to document in the yearly report company progress toward diversity targets and justify progress - or lack of (model used by UK, Sweden and others).
And if an all woman board is okay, then what hypocrisy is this new law?
This does only apply to publicly traded companies, and lots of other employment legislation does similarly limit association within companies does it not? For instance, discrimination on the basis of race or gender in the hiring process is illegal (making exception on the basis of “bona-fide occupational qualifications”). Setting aside the gender component here, it would seem that this is settled law, does it not? It appears if the argument is restriction of free association, that ship sailed, and you do not have that right at work on an absolute basis.
Is it hypocritical? Yes. Without sounding like a broken record, I don't believe that only old white men are capable of being on boards, yet they're massively overrepresented, which tells me there's some other intrinsic issue with the system or society that is creating this environment. I support this measure as an attempt to rebalance the scales. To me, the ends justify the means. If it doesn't work out, it can of course be rolled back.
Hypocrisy isn't illegal. I'm not sure whether this runs afoul of any other legislation but I'd imagine that's been thought through.
To me, the argument is: "if I am a woman creating a company for women’s products and want an all woman board..." -- you're not. Statistically, nobody is. That's the problem. If they were, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all. And when that changes, we can absolutely revisit this.
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.