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Quotas for women in senior positions?

An entertaining debate, organised by the Australian Institute of Management (AIM) in Sydney on 3 June 2011, presented the arguments for and against establishing quotas for women in senior positions.

The case against quotas

Businesswoman Julie Garland McLellan, comedian Jean Kittson and politician Malcolm Turnbull presented the following arguments:

Julie Garland McLellan

Quotas are a distraction, seeking to compensate for having derailed women’s careers earlier on. It would be better to fix the causes of the latter problem instead.
To gain and justify promotion, people need education, experience, competency and a supportive network. The latter is very important – good mentors are essential.
A person in a senior role must be highly respected by his/her peers, which a woman appointed to fill a quota could find very hard to achieve. For example, a respected person who has a minority viewpoint on an issue on a Board or management team would be able to sway the other members and persuade them to adopt his/her viewpoint.
If quotas resulted in women in senior positions who were not up to their roles, this would have a negative trickle-down effect.

Jean Kittson

Quotas have been suggested as a temporary measure until equal opportunity is achieved; however, the reality is that once quotas are introduced they would never be withdrawn.
Discrimination is never ‘positive discrimination’ because, by definition, someone will be disadvantaged by it. Men would be disadvantaged by quotas for women. It is like advocating ‘positive racism’.
Quotas are likely to encourage nepotism and favouritism.
The genders will be set against each other because men would not respect ‘quota women’.
It is likely that women would campaign against other women to gain places in the quotas.

Malcolm Turnbull

The world is basically designed to operate with men supported by their wives/partners – this is what really needs to change.
Similarly, most workplaces are designed mainly to suit men (such as those with a culture of workaholism). When workplaces are hostile to both genders, women are more likely than men to just give up.
More flexible workplaces are a better solution, and employers should study theirs carefully to assess and improve work-life balance.
Basically, quotas are just a distraction and will not achieve fundamental reform.

The three speakers emphasised that they were not opposed to promoting gender diversity, just that quotas were a clumsy and flawed way to attempt it.

The case for quotas

Businesswoman Ita Buttrose, comedian Fiona O’Loughlin and former CEO of McDonalds Peter Ritchie presented the following arguments:

Ita Buttrose

The ‘old boys’ network’ is very difficult to penetrate, because power will not be given up easily. Quotas would force them to face up to the issue.
Often, only lip service is paid to gender diversity, which means up to 50% of an organisation’s talent may be overlooked.
Norway introduced a quota system in 2003. It has been very successful, with around 42% of all Board members being women (versus 25% before it started).
Studies of Fortune 500 companies have found that those with women Board members perform better overall than those with all-male Boards.
Having women on Boards demonstrates to other women that there are career paths and opportunities for them in the organisation.
Buttrose presented a lengthy list of high-profile Australian business ‘crooks’ or failures, all of whom were men.

Fiona O’Loughlin

Trying to make it in a man’s world can take an enormous emotional toll on many women.
Men have it comparatively easy, eg most are much less involved in child-raising (and of course they do not give birth).
Therefore, quotas are a way of compensating for these barriers.

Peter Ritchie

When quotas were introduced in McDonalds US, they worked very well.
If quotas had been introduced around 20 years ago, we would have many more women leaders than now.
Looking at the current political climate as well as some evidence of cynicism about the behaviour of corporations, Australians appear to be yearning for a better quality of leadership than they currently have. Therefore, why not try something different?
Sustained efforts to close the gender gap in leadership roles have had only minor success. Therefore, it is time for a tougher intervention because just letting nature take its course will result in glacial progress.

The three speakers said that quotas would be beneficial, but only in tandem with other measures such as improving work and career flexibility, increased support for women (eg mentoring), promotion of gender equality generally and removal of structural and attitudinal barriers to progress.