from Hacker News

EU to set 40% board quota for women by 2026

by sereja on 6/8/22, 8:00 PM with 16 comments

  • by greatgib on 6/8/22, 8:28 PM

    So bad such laws. It is good to promote equality and woman in boards and all, but here it is a prime to mediocrity. You will not get a board seat because you are the more competent but because you are a: - woman - hispanic - a pinguin - ...
  • by hunglee2 on 6/8/22, 8:35 PM

  • by cato_the_elder on 6/8/22, 10:24 PM

    > While there is no penalty for missing the target, companies that do achieve it will win public praise.

    What kind of law is that? Ruling by the sanction of the victim [1]?

    Also, you can be gender-fluid [2], right? You can be a woman while serving on the board, and a man otherwise.

    [1]: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/sanction_of_the_victim.htm...

    [2]: https://gender.fandom.com/wiki/Genderfluid

  • by stevenalowe on 6/8/22, 8:03 PM

    Interesting - a similar California law was recently struck down, under what authority does the EU meddle in business like this?
  • by sn0w_crash on 6/8/22, 9:38 PM

    Can they explicitly define what they mean by “a woman” ?

    If a 40% of a board’s males identify as women, does that solve this quota?

  • by sroont on 6/8/22, 8:42 PM

    Hopefully they'll define this quota in terms of sex rather than gender identity. Otherwise this is a pointless endeavour.

    Their press release seems to imply this will be the case but, well, you never know these days. There's a lot of confusion and contention around this issue.

    Here's an interesting article about a similar consultation in the UK and its outcome, in terms of collecting statistics on the female to male ratio in boardrooms: https://sex-matters.org/posts/the-workplace/fca-women-on-cor...

  • by _-david-_ on 6/8/22, 8:31 PM

    There is a paywall so I couldn't read the article. I'm curious if some male board members are going to start identifying as women. Does this directive have any rules regarding that?
  • by djbebs on 6/8/22, 8:53 PM

    I need to leave this shithole.