Record number of women on government boards, new report shows

Wrong. Women who actually work their way into these positions also object.

As far as I can see, the biggest proponents for these quota systems are people who appear to believe women are too helpless and stupid to achieve anything by themselves, and need an undeserved leg up to succeed.

“Wrong. “

Orly?

“Women who actually work their way into these positions also object.”

Oh, based on something you’ve made up. I rest my case.

People getting an “undeserved” leg up? It is true that some women, just like at least one man in the world, can be a bundle of self-aggrandising resentments. Women are not so different.

Yes, you are wrong. Based on the fact that a quota system means the deliberate exclusion of people based on their sex. Do you think the women who work their way into those positions legitimately, are fine with the ones who don’t, so there’s often an assumption they are probably a quota filler as well?

What cooked universe do you live in?

The report mentions targets Kenbo so the real one.

LOL
Well look at you, stealing other peoples observations. Those “targets” are definitely “quotas”, and pretending otherwise just displays how full of it you are.

Targets are not quotas, because words have meaning.

The 1960s called it wants it’s joke back.

You obviously didn’t learn English expression on the 1960s so how about you get a translator to decipher your latest rant.

lol…yeah it was a pretty lame joke.

Oddly enough, Monaro68, that is precisely the aim contrary to the historical record. That is, unless you are hopping into bed with Jes “K” Kretner and franky22 with their spurious inequality of the onus of merit.

Why do you think they’re not doing that? Indeed that was the problem, women weren’t being assessed fairly for their “knowledge and capabilities”.

I fully agree that people are not identical. Are you up with Darwin and variation? How about psychology and individual differences? Probability theory and distributions?

Your massive underlying prejudice seen elsewhere here is that you wish to determine capabilities for certain tasks on factors proven irrelevant, so you construct a false claim against which to fire your bits of straw from old rubber bands.

Reality passed you by long ago.

“That this is what the left is working towards however is evidence of how out of touch with reality it is”

Complete drivel.

No one is attempting to make it ” 50% men and 50% women in every organisation”. This isn’t the argument it’s about fairness. Thanks for playing.

I suspect the assumption that there hasn’t been a marked improvement in outcomes is self-serving. Definitionally if companies measure merit properly to ensure they’re not filling up roles with mediocre blokes getting the job by default (ie. if a bloke gets the job it’s because he’s actually the best person for the job and the same applies for a woman) then there’s already an improvement.

Jes Kretner (& franky22)
If treating people equally, prima facie, is an intrinsic good then it is your problem to argue that there has been a deterioration in outcomes for you to oppose it

If you disagree with the assumption then explain clearly your difficulties over misogyny to an available fence post.

That’s a weak argument. Treating people equally is only an intrinsic good when viewed solely prima facie (i.e. at face value) and in a vacuum. In a value, equity and merit-based system (i.e. the APS), then EQUITY becomes the intrinsic good.
Again, what has the increase achieved aside from being an increase? It’s the typical hollow arguments spouted by the APS warriors in Canberra – let’s create a metric and pat ourselves on our back for our moral superiority in achieving our created metric. In the world outside of the APS where people take actually uninsured risk and have to justify their spending, this sort of self-congratulatory nonsense doesn’t exist.

Down goes Jes Kretner / Jes K in a tangle of attempted semantic distinctions. Quite amusing.

Equity, hmm:
“principles of justice to correct or supplement rules of law”,
or the Google version:
“the quality of being fair and just, especially in a way that takes account of and seeks to address existing inequalities”.

Jes makes no attempt to rebut my proposition beyond hand-waving. It is your problem to argue that either my proposition or your equity variation has a deleterious consequence. No-one needs “justify” the obvious good by some version of outperformance, even where it exists.

Own your problem, Jes. You seem afflicted with moral outrage over something completely normal.

Ironically for your final sentence, the government self-insures, is “uninsured”. It is private sector and individuals which insure, and everyone seeks to lay off risk one way or another.

It’s not a weak argument because you don’t like it, no matter how much word salad you throw at reframing it.

The argument isn’t about “intrinsic good” it’s about fairness. Capable women have historically been locked out by the boys club, having a target for women merely means that assigning roles is done on “merit”.

Mediocre men are less likely to be chosen over capable women, indeed, because there’s a target, mediocre people, in general, are more likely to be passed over.

Having an aspirational target leading to merit-based selections should make most men happy…well not the mediocre ones, obviously.

Dear Franz it is actually up to you to provide evidence that picking the best person for the job regardless of gender is not the most efficient way to go.
Why stop at gender, why not include age, ethnicity sexual orientation, IQ etc.
Just pray that your brain surgeon got his job due to their skills & not because of diversity targets.

Franz,
How does setting targets or quotas for board representation (for any group) connect logically to your statement around treating people equally?

They aren’t the same thing and one could argue by definition that they are exclusionary, in that the targets are meant to deliberately preference certain groups because of claimed historic or current discriminatory practices regardless of the individual reality or merits of applicants.

The only way your statement holds is if we assume all groups have equal qualities and desire the same outcomes. But there are numerous reasons why board representation may differ by group that don’t involve treating people unequally or inequitably.

franky22, I agree entirely that picking the best person for the job is correct. Your statement and implication were that this is not happening.

Prove it.

chewy14, you assume equal prior treatment. If the evidence is that a group is not represented to the extent that might reasonably be expected given that new opportunities give rise to more than adequate interest and performance, then your assumption fails.

It appears you will want to argue that men and women do not have materially equal qualities for jobs of this nature. Go ahead. prove otherwise, or check in with Jes’ fencepost.

Given some of current leaders, if “women” want different outcomes from “men” then I for one may be quite happy about that.

Franz,
no I haven’t assumed equal prior treatment at all, you are the one making assumptions around unequal treatment that you believe supports a blunt policy response in providing targets or quotas for representation of a certain characteristic.

You are then attempting to shift the burden of proof for your support of a layer of systemic discrimination, when that burden clearly sits with you.

“If the evidence is that a group is not represented to the extent that might reasonably be expected “

What evidence? What level might “reasonably be expected”?

“It appears you will want to argue that men and women do not have materially equal qualities for jobs of this nature”

No, this is another attempted strawman, I’e made no such argument. It may be true or not, but is not part of my argument.

What I am saying is that the data clearly shows that men and women make different choices in the workforce: participation rates, hours worked, career breaks, experience levels, qualifications etc.

All of these choices have impacts on the amounts of suitable applicants for roles such as these. Inherently, different roles in every area will create different pools of suitable talent that may vary along any number of different characteristics.

Now this may reflect some form of societal pressure on women (and other groups) or earlier discrimination unequal treatment etc. but that doesn’t really change the data. Nor does it provide any rationale to create a deliberate layer of systemic discrimination for certain characteristics bluntly across such a broad range of workplace areas.

So it’s up to you to show that levels of discrimination or unequal treatment exist and where they exist.

Then why blunt targets or quotas are the best policy response to address that treatment, rather than fixing the actual root causes of the problem. Root causes which may occur decades prior to people applying or being selected for these types of positions, creating significant disparity in merit pools.

And once you’ve done that, maybe you could provide the evidence of why the specific target should be 40% or the now updated number of 50% and how that will improve governance outcomes.

Or of course, you could find that fencepost you seem so keen on.

“it’s up to you to show that levels of discrimination or unequal treatment exist and where they exist”

No chewy14, it is not.

You appear to have missed the point entirely. It is your, franky22’s, Jes’ etc problem to demonstrate that selection of women to these posts, including the policy which enhanced the process, produces deleterious outcomes, as I first replied in this sub-thread. No-one has answered on topic so far.

Of course some people are better suited to some jobs than to others. The topic is white collar work. Who said “governance outcomes” needed to be improved, rather than maintained such that any upside is a bonus? That is a fallacy of onus.

Discussion of “choices” is much like during past reform. In Australia and Britain in the 19th century, men without title or property were obviously deficient in their ability to contemplate politics and vote. If they were not among the protesters they clearly preferred not to vote. The same later went for women but, alas, voting was imposed on all men and women over 21, then 18, subjecting them to the 99% quota. At least Swiss women respected their own right not to vote until the beginning of the 1970s. You could have found slaves who thought food and bed was a decent trade-off and for some it may have been. Choices. Others can be found in the works of Aesop and the brothers Grimm. None of that palaver is relevant to this case anyway. The question is as I stated above. Demonstrate that those selected were unmeritorious for their positions, ceteris paribus.

“No chewy14, it is not.”

Yes, yes it is and it is clearly you who have missed and then deliberately avoided the point.

Truly nonsense that you believe policies enacting systemic discrimination do not need to be supported with evidence or tracked against performance and outcomes.

It’s a shame when you started with a statement supporting equal treatment as an intrinsic good but then have repeatedly supported the opposite in your comments.

chewy14, your “is/isn’t” makes no sense as an argument or otherwise.

You ask about outcomes without citing any. In the absence of evidence that there is a poor outcome from the appointments, what is your point? Do you argue there is damage to competence or to fairness? None has been offered by you or anyone else beyond “Ooh-er but, men”. Can you imagine no other situation where society has been put under policy or regulatory pressure to shift attitudes and behaviours for long term good, socially or otherwise?

Your only recourse is to prove that the outcomes are deleterious or actually unfair because the contrary position is simply that women in question may be presumed as competent as any corresponding man and the outcome is in keeping.

The point of quotas (and many of these aren’t quotas they’re just aspirational targets) is they stop organisations from appointing jobs for the boys. ie. The organisation has to take a considered approach to determining who the best person for the job is because when they don’t, they don’t meet their targets.

And if you read the story it’s working, unless you believe it’s only “merit” based employment when it’s overwhelmingly male.

Is it really working though?

We’ll we’re much closer to parity…so yes.

“The point of quotas […] is […] The organisation has to take a considered approach to determining who the best person for the job […].” Does anyone else see the contradiction in that statement?

No.