THW set a quota on females in the board of directors of

business corporations.
Quota definition:
Quotas for women entail that women must constitute a certain number of percentage of the
members of a body. The quota system places the burden of recruitment not on the individual
woman, but on those who control the recruitment process. In this way we make sure that women are
not isolated in the corporate life, at least a “critical minority” of 30 or 40% per cent. And Quotas
can be applied as a temporary measure that is to say until the barriers for women's entry into the
board of directors are removed!

Board definition:
By the term board we refer to the board of directors or board of supervisors, supervisory board,
which is a group of people who monitor the interests of shareholders and officially administer a
company. We do not refer to the board of management, managing board, management board, which
is a group of people responsible for the everyday management and administration of a company
and carrying plans into practical effec and is accountable to the board of directors.

Prob:
Glass ceiling: The possibilities of women to move up in an organization above a certain hierarchical
level are hindered by sex discrimination. Glass refers to the notion that this is an unofficial and
difficult to observe phenomenon. Ceiling refers to the idea that climbing up the corporate ladder is
prevented.
Glass wall: gender might limit women's possibilities to move within the organization form on job or
business division to another
Glass door:Owing to their gender, women have worse possibilities to get their foot in the door of an
organization. In the recruitment stage for example they might be less likely to be asked for
interviews than men with similar qualifications.

Over the past several decades, businesses have become more inclusive of women, dismantling
many of the traditional barriers to women's advancement. Although progress has been significant
and is reflected in the number of women managers at the world's largest companies and professional
firms, it has been slow at the very top.
I think that, to a large extent and for a long time, although people said is was a good thing women
came through into senior positions, nothing much was done about it. It was left to happen, and it
doesn't happen without some sort of intervention because in terms of corporate culture, many
organizations were effectively, if no consciously, certainly subconsciously making it difficult for a
woman to progress to the top level. Up to now corporate culture and style have been male oriented,
becoming barriers to female progression in the corporation hierarchical latter because women had
not part in shaping it. Despite this, the advancement of women to the very top of companies in
significant numbers will not happen without deliberate and focused intervention led from the top of
business over a sustained period of time. This is why the government should step in providing
progressive quotas on females in the board of directors of business corporations, giving them a
specific period to fulfill the requirement. The problem is relevant since women constitute 50 percent
of the population in most countries. A quota system constructed as gender neutral, which means that
they aim at correcting the under-representation of both women and men, but in this case it would be
women since almost all board of directors are predominantly male.
Women on Boards is not just the right thing, but the bright thing.

Case: (Scandinavian Model)

In 2002, Norway enacted a law requiring that 40 percent of all board members at state-owned and
publicly listed companies be women by 2008.

Norway with a welfare system offering generous support for working women. Norway is not typical
of most countries. Until the discovery of huge gas and oil deposits in the North Sea in the 1960s, it
was one of the poorest countries in Europe – a nation of farmers and fishermen. With husbands so
often away at sea, Norwegian women became heads of the family, so equality between the sexes is
deeply ingrained. Women have long matched men in politics too. After Gro Harlem Brundtland
became the country’s first female prime minister in 1981, 8 out of her 18 cabinet ministers were
women. Every cabinet since has maintained roughly the same balance. The country has also
enforced the 40% quota on all public committees for more than 20 years, and the internal rules of
nearly all its political parties require an equal mix of men and women on electoral lists.
The time frame actually depends on how progressive the affirmative action will be. Generally you
could wait up for about a couple of BOD elections to fill up the quota requirement.
The size of the board of directors was enlarged, sometimes even doubled, to allow seats for women
without having to dismiss men. In addition two chairman were elected, one women and one man.
The Norwegian experience reveals that it takes about three elections to implement a quota system.
Since then, Spain and the Netherlands have passed similar laws. Now Belgium, Britain, Germany,
France and Sweden are considering legislative measures involving female quotas. And although
Germany is also debating such a law, Deutsche Telekom, which is based in Bonn, announced last
week that it would voluntarily introduce a quota aiming to fill 30 percent of upper and middle
management jobs with women by the end of 2015.

In Spain, Zapatero's government passed a law in 2007 obliging public companies and listed firms
with more than 250 employees to apply a minimum 40% quota for each gender in the composition
of their boards.
Although the rule is only expected to become compulsory from 2015, it has already had an impact.
Female representation on Spanish companies' boards doubled from 5% in 2006 to 10% in 2009.
In Germany, the justice ministers of the Länder recently agreed to introduce gender quotas to boost
female representation in the decision-making bodies of private companies.

Enforcement

1. JUSTIFICATION: WHY?

Historically:

Women have historically been subjected to legal discrimination based on their gender. Some of this
discrimination has been based on cultural stereotypes that cast women primarily in the roles of
wives and mothers. In the patriarchal (male-dominated) U.S. society, women have been viewed as
the "weaker sex," who needed protection from the rough-and-tumble world outside their homes.
Such beliefs were used as justifications for preventing women from voting, holding public office,
and working outside the home. In a culture that portrayed wives as appendages of their husbands,
women have often been invisible to the law.
 Equality in Representation:

The notion of “equality of result” is increasingly relevant as a second concept of equality. The
argument is that real equal opportunity does not exist just because formal barriers are removed (in
this case giving women voting rights). Quotas is a form of positive measure thus a means towards
equality of results. If barriers exist, it is argued, compensatory measures must be introduced as a
means to reach equality of result.

Women hold only 15 percent of board seats in the U.S. Given that women make up a much larger
percentage of college and professional school graduates (including M.B.A.’s), this representation
seems low.

People close to the commissioner told EurActiv that the most likely action could be aimed at the
private sector, with the introduction of gender quotas for boards of directors of top European firms.
Currently, only 11% of such positions are held by women in top European companies, according to
the European Commission.

More Transparency, and more profit, plus better governance!

There is a positive correlation between female leadership and profitability.

Eight years later, and now that all companies, public and private, must comply with the quota law,
here’s what we’ve found. International companies are now more often represented on the Oslo
Stock Exchange. Furthermore, in 2009, the Statistical Bureau showed that because of the high
educational level among female members of the board, the general level of education rose in the
boardrooms.

One study last year by the influential New York think-tank Catalyst, which ranked hundreds of
Fortune-500 companies by the percentage of women on the board, found the top quarter
outperformed those in the bottom quarter with a 53% higher return on equity. While another 2007
report, by the international management consultants McKinsey, looked at 89 top European
companies and found those where women were most strongly represented on both the board and at
senior-management level outperformed others in their sector in return on equity and stock-price
growth.

2. PROGRESSIVE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION:

(Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, sex or national
origin"[1] into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to
counter the effects of a history of discrimination.)

Why necessary: cultural values that need to change to give equal benefits to women
The service of women on boards is symbolically important, particularl as the face of culture,
society, and the workplace change so rapidly, and that the service of women on boards makes a
practical difference to how the board functions, the strength of its governance, and how this
contributes to better overall performance.

There is a double benefit to having a board that excels at promoting learning and growth. Not only
will it foster better organizational performance, but it also creates a context, a cultural mindset, that
contributes to developing women's potential as senior executives and board members.

What institutionalisation of discrimination need to be overcome:

Why state can create social change:

How women help:

74% of boards with three or more women explicitly identify criteria for measuring strategy, only 45
percent of all male boards do.
94% of boards with three or more women explicitly monitor the implementation of corporate
strategy, 66% of all male boards do. Hence women bring higher active corporate governance needed
for communication and transparency, leadership and stewardship, continuous learning and growth,
empowerment and accountability, accomplishment and measurement.
Good governance does indeed contribute to organizational performance, then it behooves corporate
leaders to pay attention to who is sitting on the board and how the board is operating. Having
women on boards may turn out to have both practical and symbolic value.

Companies with more women board directors have more inclusive workplace cultures, policies, and
programs that support women's advancement
Women board directors serve as role models to women in the pipeline and demonstrate that women
can fulfill their highest ambitions.
Women board directors are a powerful antidote to damaging stereotypes that devalue women's
abilities.
Women leaders signify employer of choice.
Women leaders signify a broader and deeper talent pool.
Women leaders correlate with better financial performance.

Research by Catalyst found that companies with higher percentages of women board directors, on
average, financially outperformed companies with the lowest percentages of women board directors
by significant margins.

Women board directors are a predicor of women corporate officers: the more women board
directors a company has in the pas, the more women corporate officers it will have in the future.

On average, the firms experienced a 2.6 percent drop in company value at the announcement of the
new law and, if they had no women on their board, they experienced a 5 percent drop in value.
Firms experienced further declines in value over the year that they changed their boards to comply
with the law.

OPPOSITION CASE:

Indeed there is a problem but no need of legislation. Women empowerment has already started and
will continue rising by itself.
1.Backlash

Stock exchange fluctuation: Opponents were concerned that faced with a quota law, international
companies would leave the Oslo Stock Exchange and company boards would suffer from a loss of
competence and skills.

Women want to be recognized by themselves.

1.) Self-View:
* When using affirmative action policy to select women for traditionally sex-typed jobs, preferential
treatment can result in negative self-regard for the individual (Heilman, Simon, & Repper, 1987).
Thus, it's likely that women that are selected on the basis of sex, rather than merit, will invest less
effort in task accomplishment, will be less likely to persevere when they encounter difficulty, and
will choose easier tasks.
* Women who are hired under preferential treatment appear to devalue and resist hiring other
women when the preferential treatment results in an undermining of their own confidence.
* Preferentially selected individuals rate the process as less fair than those selected on a merit basis.
* Preferentially selected candidates may face higher stress levels than those selected on a merit
basis (Heilman, Lucas, and Kaplow, 1990).
2.) Work Place Attitudes and Behavior:
* When there was no mention of affirmative action, women hired for positions were rated lower in
competence than men only when the job was strongly sex-typed. However, when linked to
affirmative action, women were rated as less competent in both sex-typed and sex-neutral jobs, and
were also rated less competent than other women hires not associated with affirmative action.
* The greater the role that affirmative action was believed to have played in a coworker's hiring, the
less likely qualifications were thought to have been an important factor, and the less competent the
coworker was thought to be, unless explicit information was provided to suggest otherwise.
* Inequity-based perceptions by others in the organization may result in lowered motivation in
addition to negative reactions to the individual who is believed to have benefited undeservedly.
In summary, Heilman illustrates that affirmative action results in a negative self-view for the
benefiting individual who lacks self-confidence, an overall stigma of incompetence in the work
place environment, and possible negative behaviors both from and toward those individuals hired as
a result of affirmative action policies. However, affirmative action policies don't always produce
harmful effects on the individual or create negative outcomes (Heilman, 1994). The key to
affirmative action policy is how it's implemented and how it's believed to be implemented by others
in the organization.

Create better grass roots support therefore more sustainable

Self empowerment

The focus should rather be on the numerous and often difficult to observe mechanisms and
networks that favour men or hinder women from climbing the executive ladder.
2. Compare with things state intervene

black ppl case:

Many South Africans believe that Affirmative Action is in its essence a racist policy, no different to
those policies of the Apartheid government. Academic papers have been published on the topic,
including how the perpetuation of racial identity in post-Apartheid South Africa is contrary to the
building of a non-racial South Africa. [37].
Many white people are being marginalised through the government's affirmative action policies
which see most large corporate companies forced to have a high percentage of their staff at all
levels be black. This results in companies having policies in place to ensure that all new recruits are
non-white and in many cases black only. White people, whether skilled or not, are excluded from
many employment opportunities based purely on the color of their skin. This is seen by many to be
racist in itself.

men feelings:

harm productivity:

Even if there's no real productivity harm, men still think that women are there because of the
quota which would create hostility. Women would be looked down upon in high ranking positions
creating discrimination due to the quota system which is exactly what the quota is trying to fight
for!

Opponents of Affirmative Action such as George Sher believe that affirmative action
devalues the accomplishments of people who are chosen based on the social group to which they
belong rather than their qualifications.[44] Opponents also contend that affirmative action devalues
the accomplishments of all those who belong to groups it is intended to help, therefore making
affirmative action counterproductive.[44] Opponents,[45] who sometimes say that affirmative
action is "reverse discrimination", further claim that affirmative action has undesirable side-effects
in addition to failing to achieve its goals. They argue that it hinders reconciliation, replaces old
wrongs with new wrongs, undermines the achievements of minorities, and encourages individuals
to identify themselves as disadvantaged, even if they are not. It may increase racial tension and
benefit the more privileged people within minority groups at the expense of the least fortunate
within majority groups (such as lower-class whites)

Types of change women would bring due to quota intervention rather than women self-
empowerment through their affirmative action as a women.

Due to the culture that is already there, eventhough women would be put in the position of
BOD, they will be playing a role of a man, so there's no difference, hence does not make any
changes. People would not see the benefits of having a women there.
However if women can do it themselves then they will be able to bring in values, like feminin
values that are actually needed (care, details, etc...) that a men cannot bring.
It would be better for the business climate to let things change by themselves, since there's already
grassroots mouvements then the government should open the way but not intervene blatantly.

Forcing an Equality of Outcome cannot make up for lack of Equality of Opportunity. Letting
a few students cheat and become class toppers doesn't make do anything to actually build their
abilities. That can only come from hardwork.
Wisdom to directing a corporation can only come from real management experience, not
entitlements.
Quotas are terrible policy from every angle except that of appearances. It achieves no real
sustainable equality while giving unqualified people decision making authority that should have
gone to someone else. As a result, entire society is worse off and from an economics viewpoint, it's
a form of wealth destruction.

“Quotas are a double edged sword. ON the one hand, they oblige men to think about including
women in decision-making, since men must create spaces for women. On the other hand, since it is
men who are opening up these spaces, they will seek out women who they will be able to manage.
Women who will more easily accept the hegemony of men.”

As far as many women are concerned, the idea that they might be chosen for any job on the basis of
gender alone is galling.

“I think a quota law would be the worst thing possible for women. You would never know if you
were there on your own merit or owing to some legal requirement.”
Pross:
1. -Quotas for women do not discriminate, but compensate for actual barriers that prevent
women from their fair share
2. Quotas imply that there are several women together in a committee or assembly thus
minimizing the stress often experienced by the token women
3. Women have the right as citizens to equal representation
4. women's experiences are needed in business top decisions.
5. Women are just as qualified as men, but women's qualifications are downgraded and
minimized in a male dominated society.
6. It is in fact the board of directors that control the nominations, nor primarily the voter who
decides who gets elected.
7. Introducing quotas may cause conflicts, but only temporarily

Cons
1. Quotasa are against the principle of equal opportunity for all, since women are given
preference
2. Quotas are undemocratic, because voters should be able to decide who is elected
3. Quotas imply that board of directors are elected because of their gender, not because of their
qualifications and that more qualified candidates are pushed aside.
4. Many women do not want to get elected just because they are women.
5. Introducing quotas creates significant conflicts within the board of directors