An appalling piece in HuffPo, concerning a meeting of the Women & Equalities Committee. The ‘experts’ are, predictably, feminists – in this case, feminists we contacted with evidence that increasing the proportion of women on corporate boards leads to financial decline, and refused to engage with it. The piece ends with this:
Denise Wilson OBE, the review’s chief executive officer, said women faced a “higher bar” when competing for top positions. [J4MB: An absurd claim. The government has been threatening major companies with legislated gender quotas since the Davies Report, which led to a doubling of female representation on FTSE100 boards from 12.5 % in 2011 to 25% in 2015. Virtually all the women appointed over the period were appointed as non-executive directors, a cushy well-paid number.]
[Maria] Miller, a former women and equalities minister, said the assertion was shocking and that more drastic action needed to be taken.
“Imagine if we said women faced a higher bar to get into university, or to become doctors,” she added. [J4MB: 60% of students are female, and 70% of medical students. Is it concluded by Manatee Miller that men face a higher bar? Of course not.]
“While these reviews show that progress has been made, it is clearly not fast enough. We run real risk of missing the 33% target by 2020 and both businesses and government should take responsibility.
“Too many companies are risking their performance by failing to ensure gender diversity on their boards [J4MB: We repeat – increasing gender diversity leads to corporate financial DECLINE] and among their executive managers.
“We will be looking at the findings of the reviews, considering the current figures and asking what more needs to be done to make sure the most senior positions in companies are as often held by women as by men.” [J4MB emphasis. You heard it here first, folks. The chair of the Women & Equalities Committee is seeking gender equity in senior positions in the private sector, regardless of merit, and regardless of the evidence that increasing more women on corporate boards leads to financial decline.]
Justice for Men & Boys 
Possibly those who don’t intend to be full time all of life workers, regardless of gender, should face a higher bar; or at any rate, be nearer the back of the queue, to mix the metaphors somewhat
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Female NEDS on FTSE boards are almost invariably additional posts, or female NEDs replacing male NEDs. Positive discrimination was rebranded as ‘positive action’ in the Equality Act. I am not aware of a single FTSE350 board director who has publicly criticised the move for more gender diversity on boards, and I’m sick to death of campaigning on the issue. The turkeys have voted for Xmas, roll on Xmas.
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“positive action” and “proportionate” all a bit slippery in the Act but as I say there have been successful cases where men have alleged and won direct discrimination in Employment. So until our legislators get an attack of common sense men need to be aware the Act (despite the intentions of its originators) can be used to threaten.
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Clearly, Brexit might somewhat streamline the bureaucracy that feeds the excessive perks women have come to expect from the EU. After Brexit, when 2+2 might start equaling 4 again,(or at least 5) many of the perks and quotas may go out the window. Small wonder the ‘experts’ (feminists) fear it like Dracula feared the cross.
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Virtually all the initiatives designed to privilege women over men are home-grown, i.e. nothing to do with the EU. Spineless men are allowing feminist ideology to trump meritocracy at every opportunity. Most of the most vocal proponents for ‘more women on boards’ are FTSE100 chairmen.
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I doubt very much that Brexit will make any difference at all. Partly because industry itself appears to have done nothing to oppose home grown nonsense as you say. So just todays example http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42178622 Shell published its “gender pay gap” data, as required by a Uk law (Conservatives in fact) But above a reasonable article pointing out that the gap isn’t about paying men more than women for the same work is a a headline giving the impression that women are paid less. Dozy industry should have seen no one will be interested in their explanations. The law will produce an endless procession of unfavourable headlines for companies. If the public sector experience is anything to go by the companies will have to vastly increase the pay of their HR staff and Admin staff and create whole rafts of management jobs with nothing to manage in order to appear “equal”. As you say below turkey’s and xmas come to mind.
The Brexit effect may well turn out to be that under the cold winds of international trade our companies made uncompetitive by bloated payrolls and confused management will get trashed, as happened in Eastern Europe when their economies faced a far less costly competition.
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It would not surprise me Britain outdoes even the EU in this regard.. But The EU also propagates ‘more women here, there and everywhere’ type of policies.
The problem is many male chairmen support these ‘more women in boardrooms’ equality drives because their wrongly believe it is the gentlemanly thing to do, while in reality it isn’t at all.
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‘The problem is many male chairmen support these ‘more women in boardrooms’ equality drives because their wrongly believe it is the gentlemanly thing to do … ‘
A thought that has just occurred to me is that those men are usually fairly affluent, with hard won assets and financial liabilities. Pressure from the distaff side to support the feminisation of the boardroom and management ladder may actually be responsible, rather than fear of being seen as misogynistic or old-fashioned.
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I know thsi might be an unpopular view but my view after more than 30 years of dealing with EU and british regulation is that EU based regulation is much lighter, more tightly drawn, focussed on what needs to be done and proportionate than UK regulation. No most of what I deal with is product (CE mark) related and I am very sceptical that thsi will change at all with brexit but if there are changes in regulation from brexit my believe is that it will get substantially worse.
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I have a prediction: by 2050 (should changes in technology like robotisation and AI still leave capitalism as the dominant economic system, something I believe will be the case), women will make up the majority of senior influential positions in things like politics and business. In the West power will wear a female face; nonetheless discrimination against men will still endure, despite ‘equality’ having been achieved for the white middle class Western female.
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The higher the proportion of women in senior positions, the more men’s and boys’ human rights will be abused.
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Nothing about equality of numbers for binmen (and they are all men), or the sewage industry, or anything remotely dirty or dangerous, maybe some whining about the police or fire service as they have a glamorous aspect, but in general we are here to serve.
It is note worthy that these diktats are invariably self serving; the positions they are demanding to have equal representation will be filled with women just like themselves. The rest don’t really matter.
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