Moreover, if one woman was discriminated against, you can't make up for it by hiring a different woman in some other job because humans aren't fungible.
California brought in a law banning all male boards in 2018 because the problem is so endemic. Not 1988, 2018.
A majority of companies in the S&P 500 have at least one woman on their boards, but only about a quarter have more than two, according to a study from PwC.[1]
So this is still happening now, and for decades most boards just had a token woman at best.
For me personally, when I found out about how unrepresentative corporate boardrooms were, that changed my mind about positive discrimination.
It showed me clear evidence that network effects were too strong, meritocracy is a farce and it had to be broken by forcing a cultural change, i.e. positive discrimination was the right solution.
If you go back far enough in my comment history here you'll probably find me arguing against it. But I learnt about the persistent gender and minority inequality on boards a decade or two ago and changed my mind.
You should too.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/30/business/california-requi...
>A majority of companies in the S&P 500 have at least one woman on their boards, but only about a quarter have more than two, according to a study from PwC.
is an arbitrarily defined measure (I expect intentionally to make things look worse) when we care about how many women hold board seats. In 2022, 29% of board seats are held by women. In 2018 it was something like 21%. Not at all good, but nearly double the 11% you'd get for a token woman on every board (assuming the average of 8.9 seats/board from Russell 3000).