Feminism Gone Toxic: Vagina-Counting As "Equality"
Wendy McElroy writes at Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada that the OSC, the Ontario Securities Commission, edged closer to requiring companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange to impose gender quotas on their boards of directors and in their executive offices.
McElroy points out:
Privately-owned companies are personal property as much as privately-owned dwellings are. Homeowners have a basic right to use their own property, including to determine who can have access. Business owners have a similar right to use their property, including who is hired or promoted. A government agency may use the law to usurp a business owner's property rights just as it may use the law similarly to strip a homeowner of control. In both cases, the agency would be violating the individual's right of private property. If the injustice seems more blatant vis-a-vis the homeowner, that is because a double standard is applied in terms of the law's approach and society's attitude toward personal as opposed to commercial property. Both are private property and they do not belong to the government.
She also takes on the argument that it is a sign that women are oppressed and unequal that they don't constitute 50 percent of the directors and officers (since they are 50 percent of the population):
This argument is false and reflects nothing so much as a political and dangerous shift in the definition of "equality."Equality used to mean equal access to opportunity: women wanted their persons and property fully and equally protected under the law. They wanted to have the same access as men did to public institutions, such as universities and the courts. One of the proudest accomplishments of the 20th century was to erase gender distinctions from the law. But, then, those distinctions were gradually reinserted.
Why? Because politically-correct feminism faced a problem several decades ago. In the 60s and 70s, most legal barriers to women entering all aspects of society had been swept away. Yet "imbalances" continued. There were far fewer female CEOs of corporations, for example. The imbalance was viewed as proof positive that women were still oppressed because a true equality of opportunity would have rendered an equality of results. Thus law needed to favor women through programs such as affirmative action and quota systems. Equality ceased to be about equal treatment under the law and became a cry for privilege backed by government force or threat thereof. This was the first major way in which the new equality differed from the old: it embedded gender privilege into the law.
She also points out that outcomes depend on preferences -- preferences that differ from gender to gender:
Consider how few female firefighters exist. This is not because women are barred from the profession. Indeed, fire departments actively recruit them in order to comply with affirmative action. The lack of female firefighters may be due to nothing more than the well-documented tendency of women to choose less dangerous, less physically demanding jobs that allow them time for their families. In all likelihood, the firefighting imbalance has nothing to do with inequality of opportunity even though there is a marked inequality of results.
And finally she notes that "an equality of results requires government to strip people (especially business ones) of the right to use their own property; it requires a forced redistribution of 'rights', wealth and power."
I posted this Sunday night at 9:28 pm after working on my column and prepping my radio show for tomorrow. I just got off the phone with Gregg, who spent the day at his place going through some documents. My work -- and then my boyfriend and my friends -- is my life. I have no interest in children, save for visiting them, as I did today for a few minutes -- popping out back to say hi to the neighbors' kids and see the new bracelet the little girl made for her brother.
Many women choose to have kids. Sure, some corporations may choose to offer childcare and flextime and other benefits to attract and retain women, but the reality is, a woman with kids will likely make them a priority in a way a man with kids will probably not. That's a different sort of worker you're getting -- a less-committed worker.
Also, McElroy is right on about the sorts of jobs women want. Steven Pinker made a point about this at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society conference in Austin a few years back. Regarding how women tend to be kindergarden teachers and men do not, he wondered whether people would think it okay to try to shove men into these jobs the way we try to shove women to, say, become engineers.
(Of course, men who perhaps want to become teachers of little kids rightly fear being accused of being child molesters.)
This is an interesting perspective especially for countries where women are choosing not to have kids, the birth rate drops and the government tries to incentivize them into having them.
Of course it doesn't work, just like trying to make women go into male dominated fields by using the same tactic doesn't work.
I went into a male dominated field without thinking about it. I just did it because I'm a curious cat and I admired what my father did for a living. None of my bros did it, because they weren't interested. And the girls wanted to be home makers. But I just was curious about what my father did, very very curious.
But I have a male friend who teaches ABA and it is a field full of women. He has a maternal warmth I lack.
Again-I think it's little things like this that make you work with the opposite sex and you can't force people into fields just to balance out some sex ratio.
Ppen at January 26, 2014 4:11 AM
From the Department of Labor, a list of "non traditional" occupations (i.e., those that are less than 25% female; there are a lot of them, as it turns out).
There are about 3.1 million people working at jobs with "mechanic" somewhere in the title. Average percentage of women? About three percent.
Feminists will be going on a rampage over this horrible discrimination in 3, 2, 1 ...
Cue the outrage ... c'mon, we're waiting ...
Jeff Guinn at January 26, 2014 7:02 AM
50% of all NFL and NBA teams should be women. It is only fair.
Nick at January 26, 2014 8:11 AM
If 100% of all board members of Fortune 500 companies were women, that would still only add up to a couple thousand or so. 99.9% of women will never benefit from these quotas. This isn't about equality. It's about a tiny minority of pampered privileged women screaming "Sexism!" to get their way.
Martin at January 26, 2014 9:22 AM
I noticed dishwasher was in that list Jeff lined to.
The Former Banker at January 26, 2014 9:30 AM
Martin is absolutely right, and if Norway's experience is indicative, it's going to be the same handful of women that benefit by being nominated to many board positions, often in industries that they have no relevant professional experience. Norway's regulations have been in place for over a decade and have had no effect on the representation of women in upper executive roles, where they are less prominent than in countries w/ no quotas on boards. The only impact has been to make a very few women very wealthy by government fiat.
umberto at January 26, 2014 12:18 PM
I can see how it would work is that 90% of the executive's wives would be on the the board. They would be voting how they have been told. The checks would go to some communal accaount that he has 90% control.
And nothing would change.
Jim P. at January 26, 2014 8:20 PM
Feminism, as opposed to the promotion of universal human rights, has never been anything other than toxic. It is a hate movement supported by an ideology of female supremacy and entitlement.
Where women have been forced on companies' boards, the enterprises have suffered, and/or have departed to more business-friendly locales.
Women benefiting at men's expense and still claiming victimhood? Same as it ever was... .
Jay R at January 27, 2014 11:32 AM
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