March 09, 2015

Women Good, Quotas Bad.

editor:	Gurmeet Singh

When Gulliver washes up on the shores of Lilliput, he’s forced into an emergency situation: he needs to put a fire out in the palace, and the giant - unable to find any other means - urinates on it until it is extinguished. It’s a familiar enough scene to students of English literature - Gulliver saving the tiny Lilliputian populace by uncouth means – and it came it to mind last week, when the present author read about the latest government legislating to secure advantage for underprivileged groups in the workplace; essentially, affirmative action, like pissing on a fire, is a bad way of doing a good thing.

The German government is the giant in question this time. And the introduction of quota of women on boards in Germany may be enormously influential. The quota is set at 30%, that is, 30% of supervisory seats on boards must be occupied by women starting from next year. While it’s not exactly clear where the quota will be applied (to all companies/ to mid-sized and large corporations/ to multinationals only etc.) the announcement is a welcome development in the pursuit of gender equality in the workplace, not only because some of the world’s most recognisable companies will be affected, but a German move in itself will put pressure on other large, influential Western nations to implement similar measures, particularly in Europe.

The US has reacted with scepticism, favouring pressure groups as opposed to quotas, and the 30% Club, an international pressure group aiming at getting the very percentage of women on boards have already made clear they feel emboldened by the move.

So why not celebrate? Surely such a move is welcome outright – especially so close to International Women's Day? Yes, it is a welcome move – supervisory positions on boards are overwhelmingly occupied by men, and encouragement and pressure have not ensured women have a greater role in business. Though government intervention is welcome, it leaves a bitter taste. Firstly, the fact that it had to intervene in the first place is always contentious (and also a bit annoying- why couldn’t such a thing happen organically?) but also, creates resentment and tension in the very places the law targets. The beneficiaries of affirmative action are often tokenised and diminished by majorities... well you know she only got that job because she’s a woman…There are already suggestions of resentment and disdain, with the Federation of German Industries calling the measure “purely symbolic politics”.

What’s more, affirmative action does nothing explicitly to challenge structural problems. As Alison Smale and Clare Cain Miller in the New York Times write, similar quotas in other nations “did not do much to usher more women into executive ranks, decrease the gender pay gap or increase family-friendly policies. These are goals that many advocates consider a truer guide as to whether women are advancing.”

The Green Party, however, stated they didn’t feel the quota extended far enough, and it should have at least been 40%. Quotas and their effectiveness will be argued over again and again, so long as the prejudice remains, the structural problems remain and as long as men are unwilling to speak up on behalf of women, then we can expect the government to intervene by standing over us and putting out our fires.