I agree that gender bias is a problem, I just disagree that more discrimination is the way to fix it.
I believe that some discrimination applied intelligently is often less bad than no solution at all. If better solutions can be found, then by all means lets try those first, but in absence of those, it is frankly sexist to take the absolutist position that no solution at all is better than a little postive discrimination. That amounts to saying that the problem is not important enough to be worth making any sacrifice over.
The market is actually a lot more fair than you think. If there is systematic bias against any group then somebody can make a lot of money by starting their own company and hiring those people.
I know this line of reasoning. It isn't supported by the
evidence. I refer you again to the example with the symphony orchestra.
I agree mostly with what you wrote in your last 2 paragraphs.
The problem with this kind of discrimination, apart from it being discrimination, is that it has all kinds of side consequences and it's often applied unidirectionally. When you have a 2 to 1 hiring advantage in STEM that's a huge problem caused by this kind of thinking, yet it's not seen as a problem because women are supposedly the oppressed class. Meanwhile this policy is making it rational to believe that women working in STEM jobs are less qualified, which is a big disservice to the brilliant women who got there on merit. (note that I personally score some victimology points, and I HATE the quotum policies and special grants etc.) Instead we should decide what the situation is that we want to reach and aim directly for that. In my opinion that situation is one where gender does not matter in situations where it doesn't matter and everyone has equal opportunity. The goal should not be a situation where we're enforcing quotas because that's a situation where people are not doing what they want to do.
The orchestra is a good example where it did work. They started to use blind evaluations to hire the best players. They didn't implement gender quotas (as far as I know, and if they did I disagree that that's the solution).
I believe that some discrimination applied intelligently is often less bad than no solution at all. If better solutions can be found, then by all means lets try those first, but in absence of those, it is frankly sexist to take the absolutist position that no solution at all is better than a little postive discrimination. That amounts to saying that the problem is not important enough to be worth making any sacrifice over.
The market is actually a lot more fair than you think. If there is systematic bias against any group then somebody can make a lot of money by starting their own company and hiring those people.
I know this line of reasoning. It isn't supported by the evidence. I refer you again to the example with the symphony orchestra.
I agree mostly with what you wrote in your last 2 paragraphs.