Thank god - finally - someone has determined the most effective way to solve all inequities in the world based on gender - force Apple to have more women on the board of directors - and everything for ever after will be sunshine and puppy dogs.
If the pundits really want there to be more women in these positions I think they need to start at the bottom, not the top, meaning that such change is far more effective when it is pervasive and begins at the earliest stages of childhood development rather than forced at the end stage.
If you want to claim that you are making up for years of inequity then where do you stop?
To me equal opportunity should be like a batter in baseball. Every batter gets 4 balls and 3 strikes - regardless of age, sex, race, religion, or ability. Those who develop their talent are more likely to be successful than those who do not. But even in a case where the rules are equally applied to all batters does not mean that every single batter faces the same pitches or the same fielders. Imagine if all the ideas about equal opportunity as they are pushed in the business world were used in baseball - we would have a machine "throwing" identical pitches to each batter - and the speed would be adjusted for each batter - and there would be no fielders - just paint boxes so wherever your balls lands that what you get - make it like the pin ball machine version of baseball. and then we could have the distance to the basses adjusted for the height or stride length and age of each batter.
I am not suggesting that discrimination doesn't happen but also consider that in hiring for anything but menial labor there can be considerations beyond what's on your resume that make one candidate more qualified than another.
Also - if only 17% of all members of boards of directors are women across all fortune 500 companies - shouldn't that mean that Apple is right in line if they have eight members on the board and one is a woman that is about 13% - so looks like they are right in line with the proportion of the population of qualified board members.
Which raises the question - how do you determine what the "correct" ratio is? should it be 50/50 if the male/female ratio in the public are large is 50/50? but what if you exclude people who are not actively employed or seeking employment, is that still 50/50? and what if you restrict it to only people who have a certain level of education and experience as managers or team leaders or business owners, is it still 50/50? and if any of those groups don't meet your golden ratio - then you should work to change the underlying conditions that lead to that ratio - if you change the ratio of qualified applicants from 83/17 male/female to something like 60/40 then it might be a valid criticism if Apple is under 20%.
Another factor is how long does the average member sit on a board of directors? if it is 20 or 30 years then you might need to wait 40 or 60 years for changes in the available pool of qualified applicants to spread throughout the business world.
Reminds me of the story of the government inspector who shows up at a small business and tells the owner that with his 10 employes he must have two minorities - so the business owner calls in two minority workers and tells them they are fired - when the government agents asks for an explanation - the business owner says I have four minority employees but you said I had to have two so I have to let these two go.
No one with any intelligence whatsoever gives a flying frick. Apple isn’t going to hire “minorities” to fill some magical quota. They’ll hire who can do the job, whoever that may be.
AI, don’t perpetuate this nonsense.
Hiring is not a weightlifting contest, can’t always 'empirically measure' whose is best. So.. if there are two candidates that are 'qualified', one a 'minority'(your words... woman might take issue) and one not, what should they do?
No one with any intelligence whatsoever gives a flying frick. Apple isn’t going to hire “minorities” to fill some magical quota. They’ll hire who can do the job, whoever that may be.
AI, don’t perpetuate this nonsense.
Hiring is not a weightlifting contest, can’t always 'empirically measure' whose is best. So.. if there are two candidates that are 'qualified', one a 'minority'(your words... woman might take issue) and one not, what should they do?
They should make the decision based on other traits such as personality, not gender, colour or even disability.
To clarify, if a disabled purple woman is the most qualified for the job, she should get it based only on being the most qualified for the job.
I've always been surprised at the lack of complaining about the fact that Apple's Keynotes were always a who's-who of Your Favorite Ivy League College's Fraternity Board.
Please post the one or two exceptions to this when an Asian has come on stage. 500 points for a female. An extra 1,000 points for any African-Americans.
It reminds me of when I stumbled across a protest at Berkeley in the late eighties--they were protesting a lack of diversity among the (actually quite diverse) faculty, and one of their points of contention was that there were no African Americans in the Scandinavian department. I'm not kidding.
The field I work in (technology-related) has a lot more men than women, and the people are of an ethnic mix that certainly doesn't reflect the general population: white American, Chinese, Russian and Indian. To some, that might sound diverse, it doesn't feel like it. It's just that those are the cultures and education systems that produce people with the skills required, and I think most women are either drawn or pushed toward other fields. I hope this will change, but I think there would need to be changes in education and upbringing, rather than just saying you have to hire people based on their genetics. I'm sure discrimination is still an issue in some cases, but I doubt that's what's going on with Apple's board.
Anyone that believes in the US we hire or promote based on who does the best job is living on Fantasy Island. Apple is high profile and the advocacy groups will haunt this issue forever. For police and fire in the state I live in if a certain demographic can't pass the test and they need those numbers they simply lower the standard for the test.
I worked for both GE Capital and IBM and I can tell you at every HR meeting the flow charts based on race and gender are the first to come out. If you don't have enough of either the manager better be promoting whatever shortfall he/she has in that department. The pressure on Apple will not stop until they fall in line and if they don't the lawsuits will be non stop.
The advocacy groups justify their entire existence on issues like this.
I've always been surprised at the lack of complaining about the fact that Apple's Keynotes were always a who's-who of Your Favorite Ivy League College's Fraternity Board.
Please post the one or two exceptions to this when an Asian has come on stage. 500 points for a female. An extra 1,000 points for any African-Americans.
Al Gore could very well be a major influence on Apple's environmental policies. Their renewable energy outlays for their data centers are evidence of some heavy commitment in this area. This may be one of his "qualifications" that you're asking for—making carbon reduction a tangible goal.
Well said.
I may not agree with him on every issue, but he certainly has done a lot to bring environmental issues more to the fore.
Comments
Thank god - finally - someone has determined the most effective way to solve all inequities in the world based on gender - force Apple to have more women on the board of directors - and everything for ever after will be sunshine and puppy dogs.
If the pundits really want there to be more women in these positions I think they need to start at the bottom, not the top, meaning that such change is far more effective when it is pervasive and begins at the earliest stages of childhood development rather than forced at the end stage.
If you want to claim that you are making up for years of inequity then where do you stop?
To me equal opportunity should be like a batter in baseball. Every batter gets 4 balls and 3 strikes - regardless of age, sex, race, religion, or ability. Those who develop their talent are more likely to be successful than those who do not. But even in a case where the rules are equally applied to all batters does not mean that every single batter faces the same pitches or the same fielders. Imagine if all the ideas about equal opportunity as they are pushed in the business world were used in baseball - we would have a machine "throwing" identical pitches to each batter - and the speed would be adjusted for each batter - and there would be no fielders - just paint boxes so wherever your balls lands that what you get - make it like the pin ball machine version of baseball. and then we could have the distance to the basses adjusted for the height or stride length and age of each batter.
I am not suggesting that discrimination doesn't happen but also consider that in hiring for anything but menial labor there can be considerations beyond what's on your resume that make one candidate more qualified than another.
Also - if only 17% of all members of boards of directors are women across all fortune 500 companies - shouldn't that mean that Apple is right in line if they have eight members on the board and one is a woman that is about 13% - so looks like they are right in line with the proportion of the population of qualified board members.
Which raises the question - how do you determine what the "correct" ratio is? should it be 50/50 if the male/female ratio in the public are large is 50/50? but what if you exclude people who are not actively employed or seeking employment, is that still 50/50? and what if you restrict it to only people who have a certain level of education and experience as managers or team leaders or business owners, is it still 50/50? and if any of those groups don't meet your golden ratio - then you should work to change the underlying conditions that lead to that ratio - if you change the ratio of qualified applicants from 83/17 male/female to something like 60/40 then it might be a valid criticism if Apple is under 20%.
Another factor is how long does the average member sit on a board of directors? if it is 20 or 30 years then you might need to wait 40 or 60 years for changes in the available pool of qualified applicants to spread throughout the business world.
Reminds me of the story of the government inspector who shows up at a small business and tells the owner that with his 10 employes he must have two minorities - so the business owner calls in two minority workers and tells them they are fired - when the government agents asks for an explanation - the business owner says I have four minority employees but you said I had to have two so I have to let these two go.
No one with any intelligence whatsoever gives a flying frick. Apple isn’t going to hire “minorities” to fill some magical quota. They’ll hire who can do the job, whoever that may be.
AI, don’t perpetuate this nonsense.
Hiring is not a weightlifting contest, can’t always 'empirically measure' whose is best. So.. if there are two candidates that are 'qualified', one a 'minority'(your words... woman might take issue) and one not, what should they do?The comments here? #everydaysexism
The idea that Apple can't find qualified board members who aren't white males is ridiculous.
The idea that any company should be pressured to hire any person based on any other measurement beyond being qualified is ridiculous.
No one with any intelligence whatsoever gives a flying frick. Apple isn’t going to hire “minorities” to fill some magical quota. They’ll hire who can do the job, whoever that may be.
AI, don’t perpetuate this nonsense.
Hiring is not a weightlifting contest, can’t always 'empirically measure' whose is best. So.. if there are two candidates that are 'qualified', one a 'minority'(your words... woman might take issue) and one not, what should they do?
They should make the decision based on other traits such as personality, not gender, colour or even disability.
To clarify, if a disabled purple woman is the most qualified for the job, she should get it based only on being the most qualified for the job.
If you're mostly hiring white men, you're probably not hiring the best person for the job.
Let's try it in reverse and see how people respond "If you're mostly hiring black women, you're probably not hiring the best person for the job".
Now do you see how stupid your statement sounds?
I've always been surprised at the lack of complaining about the fact that Apple's Keynotes were always a who's-who of Your Favorite Ivy League College's Fraternity Board.
Please post the one or two exceptions to this when an Asian has come on stage. 500 points for a female. An extra 1,000 points for any African-Americans.
Sure thing. Certainly the shareholder group in the article didn’t¡
Not hire based on skin color or gender. That’s rule number one. Not hire to “round out the colors and genders” is rule number two.
It reminds me of when I stumbled across a protest at Berkeley in the late eighties--they were protesting a lack of diversity among the (actually quite diverse) faculty, and one of their points of contention was that there were no African Americans in the Scandinavian department. I'm not kidding.
The field I work in (technology-related) has a lot more men than women, and the people are of an ethnic mix that certainly doesn't reflect the general population: white American, Chinese, Russian and Indian. To some, that might sound diverse, it doesn't feel like it. It's just that those are the cultures and education systems that produce people with the skills required, and I think most women are either drawn or pushed toward other fields. I hope this will change, but I think there would need to be changes in education and upbringing, rather than just saying you have to hire people based on their genetics. I'm sure discrimination is still an issue in some cases, but I doubt that's what's going on with Apple's board.
Anyone that believes in the US we hire or promote based on who does the best job is living on Fantasy Island. Apple is high profile and the advocacy groups will haunt this issue forever. For police and fire in the state I live in if a certain demographic can't pass the test and they need those numbers they simply lower the standard for the test.
I worked for both GE Capital and IBM and I can tell you at every HR meeting the flow charts based on race and gender are the first to come out. If you don't have enough of either the manager better be promoting whatever shortfall he/she has in that department. The pressure on Apple will not stop until they fall in line and if they don't the lawsuits will be non stop.
The advocacy groups justify their entire existence on issues like this.
Let's try it in reverse and see how people respond "If you're mostly hiring black women, you're probably not hiring the best person for the job".
Now do you see how stupid your statement sounds?
Stupid?
They should be the best. All the rest is irrelevant.
If you're mostly hiring white men, you're probably not hiring the best person for the job.
Wow, I missed this. Talk about ludicrous nonsense.
Let's try it in reverse and see how people respond "If you're mostly hiring black women, you're probably not hiring the best person for the job".
Now do you see how stupid your statement sounds?
Both statements are correct, aren't they?
1) "...if you're mostly hiring white men, you're probably not hiring the best person for the job".
2) "...if you're mostly hiring black women, you're probably not hiring the best person for the job".
With all due respect, you're using convoluted logic. And in an inartful way, making the opposite argument.
Best.
Wow, I missed this. Talk about ludicrous nonsense.
Ludicrous? Nonsense?
They should be the best. All the rest is irrelevant.
Yes. In a perfect world.
They should be the best. All the rest is irrelevant.
And like we all know: http://www.maniacworld.com/anything-unrelated-is-irrelephant.jpg
I've always been surprised at the lack of complaining about the fact that Apple's Keynotes were always a who's-who of Your Favorite Ivy League College's Fraternity Board.
Please post the one or two exceptions to this when an Asian has come on stage. 500 points for a female. An extra 1,000 points for any African-Americans.
Most racist thing posted today
Are you having trouble with English today? Stop this nonsense.
Al Gore could very well be a major influence on Apple's environmental policies. Their renewable energy outlays for their data centers are evidence of some heavy commitment in this area. This may be one of his "qualifications" that you're asking for—making carbon reduction a tangible goal.
Well said.
I may not agree with him on every issue, but he certainly has done a lot to bring environmental issues more to the fore.
Are you having trouble with English today? Stop this nonsense.
Not at all...I just find it unnecessarily dismissive and pejorative. And clumsy.