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[Loud Whispers]

Well, if you seriously wanted to obscure the other two, you'd need to do that anyway. I mean, Mary Worthington-Smythe is unlikely to turn out to be a Brazilian male. Plus, obscuring the personal details that way would allow you to quote The Prisoner at every job interview.

I just clocked this is not a very workable system

Though I must admit I am quite enthralled by the notion of voting for a politician I haven't seen, heard or even know their identity, we shadow governments now
I suppose the novelty would wear off after you couldn't figure out if every single MP wasn't in fact the same person

[mainiac]

if every single MP wasn't in fact the same person

One man, one vote.

[Bohandas]

Holy shit my posts would actually improve the quality of the thread

As I said, what er need to do is obscure race and sex. That's the only way to prevent hiring and promotion decisions from being based on race.

Don't forget names, you can usually tell someone's background roughly based on name alone. Certain names for example are council flat, others are public school, others are big bank cheese e.t.c.

Well, if you seriously wanted to obscure the other two, you'd need to do that anyway. I mean, Mary Worthington-Smythe is unlikely to turn out to be a Brazilian male. Plus, obscuring the personal details that way would allow you to quote The Prisoner at every job interview.

"You are Number Six"

[Powder Miner]

Everyone here is arguing about whether or not there's gender discrimination in the workplace, but... in this context that isn't actually my main concern. Even if there is tangible and quantifiable discrimination in the workplace, something I don't have much interest in arguing either way, I don't support a quota system, because I quite simply don't think the ends justify the means here.

Quotas mean, by their very definition, that gender MUST be considered on an application over other factors, legally. One can sort by merit, and find that they've messed up the required balance and have to specifically change their hiring to be suitable for the quota, but the opposite isn't the case; focusing on what actually makes a person suitable for a job is potentially restricted, hiring someone instead based on their gender is not, and may in fact be required. This isn't acceptable to me. Countering discrimination with further discrimination does NOT make a non-discriminatory atmosphere, just one where two discriminations are battling it out, and I'm one of those equality-of-opportunity-under-the-government guys:  I think that if we ever want a really equal society, the lawbook shouldn't be arbitrating on matters of race and gender. It's wrong when laws specifically hold women down -- it doesn't become any more right because the target is shifted.

[mainiac]

So how much discrimination would it take for you to consider it too much to ignore?

[Strife26]

Entirely determinate by the percentile equivalent that's it drags my attractiveness as a candidate down. As long as I'm not dropping more than 10ish points due to gender, it's all good.

[Reelya]

The stratification effect is the biggest argument against quotas, at least for anything where there's ability involved. Quotas cause the selected pool of applicants to form into two groups, with a gap between them based on whatever sorting metric you originally used to grade applicants. This can backfire big time when you're trying to show that "anyone can do it" - you reinforce the idea that the group you "helped" are under-performers.

But stratification is only a serious issue when the number of swapped applicants is large: "large preferences" in the language of Affirmative Action, so it's safe enough to have "small preferences" (i.e. a relatively small number of people added due to the quota isn't going to cause significant stratification).

But if were only after a pretty weak quota, to avoid issues such as stratification, then we might as well just enforce more objective decision-making in the first place rather than worry about the quota.

[mainiac]

Entirely determinate by the percentile equivalent that's it drags my attractiveness as a candidate down. As long as I'm not dropping more than 10ish points due to gender, it's all good.

Sounds legit.

[Orange Wizard]

Entirely determinate by the percentile equivalent that's it drags my attractiveness as a candidate down. As long as I'm not dropping more than 10ish points due to gender, it's all good.

Sounds legit.

It's a fair point. Trying to root out bias of all kinds Inquisition-style is kinda doomed to failure. If bias is there, but it's not significantly affecting how likely you are to be hired (which might as well be 5-10% like Strife said), then who cares?

[Frumple]

Uh, everyone who it is significantly affecting how likely they are to be hired? Anyone in a society where that imbalance is (at least perceived as) having a net deleterious effect for everyone, or at least more people than it's benefiting? Buncha' other folks, buncha' other reasons?

S'also worth noting that 5-10% on a societal scale is... not small. That'd be 15-30 million people in the US, if it's an ubiquitous effect (which it usually isn't, really, but still), around half that if it just effected the workforce. For comparison, OW, a universal 5% bias in the US workforce would effect just shy of two New Zealands. As in the entire country's population, a bit less than twice over. Stuff like that is why people care about small discrepancies, heh.

[Antioch]

So how much discrimination would it take for you to consider it too much to ignore?

I would first like to see the numbers about how many new appointees in the discussed fields are currently male/female.

edit: I finally found these numbers referenced in a newspaper, albeit without source. Apparently respectively 31.5 and 28.5 % of new appointees in the positions covered by the quota were female in the last 2 years.

[wobbly]

edit: I finally found these numbers referenced in a newspaper, albeit without source. Apparently respectively 31.5 and 28.5 % of new appointees in the positions covered by the quota were female in the last 2 years.

So if the numbers are correct, the quota (30%) will achieve nothing other then causing bad feelings among people who don't like a quota system? I mean you've already got around 30% coming in without it.

[nullBolt]

edit: I finally found these numbers referenced in a newspaper, albeit without source. Apparently respectively 31.5 and 28.5 % of new appointees in the positions covered by the quota were female in the last 2 years.

So if the numbers are correct, the quota (30%) will achieve nothing other then causing bad feelings among people who don't like a quota system? I mean you've already got around 30% coming in without it.

It means that next year the government can point to it and say, "Look, the quota worked! We're an effective feminist government! Vote for us!"

[Reelya]

If 30% of hires are female already then a "30%" quota isn't going to do anything, but it will do something: sexist people can now claim that the 30% of women who are there "only got in because of the quota". And many people will actually believe that without evidence. Hell, since the government will be keen to say their quota worked, they might even promote this half-truth themselves, in a good intentioned way, but still damaging to the professional credibility of the existing women in the field.

Even within the boardroom, you need to respect privacy of the hiring process, so you can't actually tell people whether they got in via quota or merit. But that is a double-edged sword as women now cannot prove that they got in on merit, and not part of the quota. The quota infantilizes women who got there on their own and gives potential ammunition to their critics. Hell, because you tick-off your "woman quota" starting from the most-talented woman in the room, the accusation of being just part of a quota could stick to even the most outstanding women.

So it could create a false impression that women didn't earn their place. And the more subjective the process is, the more damaging that can be. Let's say that the proportion of women hired would have naturally risen to 50% in the long run, but you have a 30% quota. Now, the 30% of women get suspicion of being "quota babies", and there is a push-back against mentoring additional women because "we already have our quota". A similar thing has happened in the past with black teacher quotas.

[Willfor]

Okay, so let's transition this topic to proposals about what will actually work as an effective measure, as there don't seem to be many proposed fixes that don't include quotas.

Personally, I am for publicly shaming any company without at least 30% women in top roles, legislating that they have to include an image of poop somewhere in their logo until they meet this criteria.