[karajorma]

It is stupid to try to make the argument that feminists should rebrand themselves as egalitarians cause in 5 years that word will be viewed in exactly the same way feminism is now. Yet this is a frequent comment made whenever feminism is brought up. Along with the argument that men can't be feminists and a whole bunch of other bull****. Basically my issue is that this topic has just been an excuse for people who don't want things to change to trot out the same tired old argument one more time.

Let me sum up.

I don't believe that the sexes are currently even close to equal.
I believe that this current inequality hurts both men and women.
I think that therefore people of both sexes should be striving to redress that balance.
I think that people who claim that the above isn't true or isn't necessary are deluding themselves.

[666maslo666]

Let me sum up.

Now let me sum it up.

1. I believe fighting racial or gender inequality by reverse discrimination is wrong. Two wrongs dont make a right.

2. Significant number of feminists (but not all) advocate for things like quotas. This makes feminism problematic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/07/world/europe/german-law-requires-more-women-on-corporate-boards.html?_r=1

3. Even those who do not want outright quotas often support other forms of affirmative action, such as taking race/gender into account when candidates are equal, or adding points for race/gender during college admissions. This is almost as bad as quotas and another reason why feminism is problematic.

4. There may be some good feminists who are real egalitarians and want a colorblind and gender-blind approach for hiring/college etc, but they are very much a minority IMHO.

[Ghostavo]

It is stupid to try to make the argument that feminists should rebrand themselves as egalitarians cause in 5 years that word will be viewed in exactly the same way feminism is now. Yet this is a frequent comment made whenever feminism is brought up. Along with the argument that men can't be feminists and a whole bunch of other bull****. Basically my issue is that this topic has just been an excuse for people who don't want things to change to trot out the same tired old argument one more time.

Either feminism needs a reformation, or the term feminism needs to be forever qualified with some prefix in order to be used, or the different branches of feminism need to get a non-prefix name to more easily distinguish themselves from their root (i.e. feminism). Until one of those things occur, this discussion will happen repeatedly.

[The E]

2. Significant number of feminists (but not all) advocate for things like quotas. This makes feminism problematic.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/07/world/europe/german-law-requires-more-women-on-corporate-boards.html?_r=1

No, this makes those particular feminists problematic.

Also, have you actually looked at that particular law, and what the impact will be? It'll be about 180 positions that will now have to be filled by women. 180 jobs, in all of Germany. Truly, these are dark times, when 180 men who would be qualified for those positions will have to look elsewhere for job opportunities. Whatever will they do?

4. There may be some good feminists who are real egalitarians and want a colorblind and gender-blind approach for hiring/college etc, but they are very much a minority IMHO.

That's because you don't make an effort to figure out what the actual mainstream position is, but just get outraged at whatever the conservative internet drags up from the fringes.

[karajorma]

Yep. Maslo's position is exactly what I pointed out earlier happening with racists. No one becomes a racist because of affirmative action. Racists use affirmative action to justify their racism.

Maslo hasn't taken an objective look at things and decided that because of the evidence feminists are a problem. He's decided he doesn't like feminists and then looked for evidence to justify that point of view. That's why his arguments are so threadbare (oh no! 180 men can't have a particular job!). The whole argument about quotas is pretty stupid anyway cause even if they did exist and feminists backed them, they'd change very little in the fields they'd be instituted. But what is important is that they can be used to fool people into thinking that their arguments about sexism aren't actually based on a deep rooted sexism.

That's why almost every single argument on this thread can be found 10-15 years ago when talking about affirmative action based on race.

[Grizzly]

Let me sum up.

4. There may be some good feminists who are real egalitarians and want a colorblind and gender-blind approach for hiring/college etc, but they are very much a minority IMHO.

But colourblindness and genderblindness is unrealistic. Let's tackle colourbrlindness specifically: In the US, for instance, all african-americans share a common heritage: They are the descendants of slaves. They are the descendants of people who suffered from an almost nazi-like racial seperation that lasted untill the 60s, and the effects of which  persists trough this date due to many people being raised during those times still being in charge of a lot of institutions. Another big factor is that the primary means of succes is still inheritance: The money your parents have determines which schools you can go to, which healthcare you have access to, etc.

So if you, for your job application, meet two people who are completely equally qualified, one of which is black and one of which is white, the black person would, statistically speaking, be a more logical choice: Due to institutionalized racism being such a strong factor, the black person has had to work a lot harder to get into that position.

A completely meritocratic society is what one should ultimately strive for, but ignoring the reality that our societies are not meritocratic does not make it more meritocratic. You'd have to recognize that there are people who have had the odds stacked against them by the system, and thanks to our troubled history these odds are seperated by race because that's how the systems were built.

[The E]

Here's some interesting data.

This article presents an investigation of gender bias in open source by studying how software
developers respond to pull requests, proposed changes to a software project’s code, documentation,
or other resources. A successfully accepted, or ‘merged,’ example is shown in Figure 1.
We investigate whether pull requests are accepted at different rates for self-identified women
compared to self-identified men. For brevity, we will call these developers ‘women’ and ‘men,’
respectively. Our methodology is to analyze historical GitHub data to evaluate whether pull
requests from women are accepted less often. While other open source communities exist, we
chose to study GitHub because it is the largest (4), claiming to have over 12 million collaborators
across 31 million software repositories.

From the conclusions:

To summarize this paper’s observations:
1. Women are more likely to have pull requests accepted than men.
2. Women continue to have high acceptance rates as they gain experience.
3. Women’s pull requests are less likely to serve an immediate project need.
4. Women’s changes are larger.
5. Women’s acceptance rates are higher across programming languages.
6. Women have lower acceptance rates as outsiders when they are identifiable as women.
We next consider several alternative theories that may explain these observations as a whole.
Given observations 1–5, one theory is that a bias against men exists, that is, a form of
reverse discrimination. However, this theory runs counter to prior work (e.g., (13)), as well
as observation 6. With 6, we observed that when a contributor’s gender is identifiable, men’s
acceptance rates surpass women’s.
Another theory is that women are taking fewer risks than men. This theory is consistent with
Byrnes’ meta-analysis of risk-taking studies, which generally find women are more risk-averse
than men (20). However, this theory is not consistent with observation 4, because women tend
to change more lines of code, and changing more lines of code correlates with an increased risk
of introducing bugs (21).

Another theory is that women in open source are, on average, more competent than men.
This theory is consistent with observations 1–5. To be consistent with observation 6, we need
to explain why women’s pull request acceptance rate drops when their gender is apparent. An
addition to this theory that explains observation 6, and the anecdote describe in the introduction,
is that discrimination against women does exist in open source.
Assuming this final theory is the best one, why might it be that women are more competent,
on average? One explanation is survivorship bias: as women continue their formal and informal
education in computer science, the less competent ones may change fields or otherwise drop
out. Then, only more competent women remain by the time they begin to contribute to open
source. In contrast, less competent men may continue. While women do switch away from
STEM majors at a higher rate than men, they also have a lower drop out rate then men (22),
so the difference between attrition rates of women and men in college appears small. Another
explanation is self-selection bias: the average woman in open source may be better prepared
than the average man, which is supported by the finding that women in open source are more
likely to hold Master’s and PhD degrees (1). Yet another explanation is that women are held
to higher performance standards than men, an explanation supported by Gorman and Kmec’s
analysis of the general workforce (23).
In closing, as anecdotes about gender bias persist, it’s imperative that we use big data to
better understand the interaction between genders. While our big data study does not definitely
prove that differences between gendered interactions are caused by bias among individuals, the
trends observed in this paper are troubling. The  frequent refrain that open source is a pure
meritocracy must be reexamined.

[666maslo666]

Also, have you actually looked at that particular law, and what the impact will be? It'll be about 180 positions that will now have to be filled by women. 180 jobs, in all of Germany. Truly, these are dark times, when 180 men who would be qualified for those positions will have to look elsewhere for job opportunities. Whatever will they do?

Even one job is too much. It is about the principle. Either you support equality, or you support female supremacy. And as it turns out, most feminists support the latter.

That's because you don't make an effort to figure out what the actual mainstream position is, but just get outraged at whatever the conservative internet drags up from the fringes.

You do realize this is the law in Germany? Cant get more mainstream than that. And similar laws supporting either quotas or other forms of affirmative action exist all over the US and western Europe. This is the mainstream feminist position, period. Feminists who support egalitarian positions are very much a minority.

[The E]

Also, have you actually looked at that particular law, and what the impact will be? It'll be about 180 positions that will now have to be filled by women. 180 jobs, in all of Germany. Truly, these are dark times, when 180 men who would be qualified for those positions will have to look elsewhere for job opportunities. Whatever will they do?

Even one job is too much. It is about the principle. Either you support equality, or you support female supremacy. And as it turns out, most feminists support the latter.

My next question then is whether you have actually read the law in question. I am guessing that you (or the sources you cite) haven't; After all, proper research would detract from getting outraged.

So, let's do a quick review then. What does this law actually do?

Let's start with Article 2, which governs the law's applicability:

Dieses Gesetz gilt für alle Gremien nach § 3 Nummer 1 und 2, für die der Bund Mitglieder bestimmen kann.
Es gilt nicht für die Ernennung der Mitglieder der Bundesregierung, nicht für die Gerichtsbarkeit und nicht für
Gremienmitglieder, die in Ausübung gesetzlich verbürgter Unabhängigkeit bestimmt werden.

Translation: "This law is applicable for all bodies defined in Article 3, Sections 1 and 2, for which the federal government has the ability to appoint members. It is not applicable for the appointment of members of the federal government, not for bodies of the judiciary and not for bodies falling under the rule of legislative independence."

This already limits the law massively. Companies in which the federal government doesn't hold a stake are exempt.

Article 3 is concerned with defining the terms used; Section 1 defines supervisory boards, Section 2 covers other "important" groups (basically any other group where the government has nominating rights), Section 3 defines entities of the federal government, and Section 4 is a catchall term for cases where the federal government nominates a member of a group not falling under Sections 1 - 3.

Now we come to the meat of the matter, the actual text of the law.

(1) In einem Aufsichtsgremium müssen ab dem 1. Januar 2016 mindestens 30 Prozent der durch den Bund zu bestimmenden Mitglieder Frauen und mindestens 30 Prozent Männer sein. Der Mindestanteil ist bei erforderlich werdenden Neuwahlen, Berufungen und Entsendungen zur Besetzung einzelner oder mehrerer Sitze zu beachten und sukzessive zu steigern. Bestehende Mandate können bis zu ihrem vorgesehenen Ende wahrgenommen werden. Stehen dem Bund insgesamt höchstens zwei Gremiensitze zu, sind die Sätze 1 bis 3 nicht anzuwenden. Bestimmen mehrere Institutionen des Bundes nach § 3 Nummer 3 Mitglieder eines Gremiums, ist die Gesamtzahl der zu bestimmenden Mitglieder maßgeblich. Bei den Berechnungen ist zur nächsten vollen Personenzahl aufzurunden.
(2) Es ist das Ziel, ab dem 1. Januar 2018 die in Absatz 1 genannten Anteile auf 50 Prozent zu erhöhen. Steht dem Bund insgesamt eine ungerade Anzahl an Gremiensitzen zu, darf das Ungleichgewicht zwischen Frauen und Männern nur einen Sitz betragen.
(3) Bei einer Unterschreitung der Vorgaben nach den Absätzen 1 und 2 ist das Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend unverzüglich zu unterrichten; die Unterschreitung ist zu begründen.

Translation:
(1) Starting January 1st, 2016, the federal government is bound to ensure that in cases where it has to nominate members of a body, its nominations will be comprised of at least 30% women and at least 30% men. These minimal shares are to be considered whenever new nominations, appointments and secondments have to be made and shall be increased over time. Existing mandates shall be valid until their terms end regularly. If the number of seats under the purview of the federal government does not exceed 2, Sections 1 and 3 shall not be applicable. Should multiple federal agencies have nominating power, nominations should be made based on the total number of positions the federal government can nominate.
(2) The goal is to increase the minimal shares defined in Section 1 to 50%, starting January 1st, 2018. If the federal government can only nominate an uneven number of seats, it shall ensure that the imbalance does not exceed one seat.
(3) If the goals and conditions defined in Sections 1 and 2 cannot be met, the Ministry for Families, Elderly, Women and Youth is to be informed immediately and the reasoning behind this decision is to be explained.

So, what do we have here? A quota for women, yes. But also a quota for men, strangely enough. And let's keep in mind that this only covers the behaviour of the federal government, not that of private actors.

And that's the law in its entirety, pretty much. There are additional provisions for the gathering and disseminations of regular reports on the topic, but I figure those are unimportant to the discussion here.

In conclusion, then, we see that these are rules the federal government has set for itself; It's not applicable to the vast majority of positions in the german working world. Also note that there are no penalties for noncompliance defined here.

You do realize this is the law in Germany? Cant get more mainstream than that. And similar laws supporting either quotas or other forms of affirmative action exist all over the US and western Europe. This is the mainstream feminist position, period. Feminists who support egalitarian positions are very much a minority.

A 50/50 split sounds plenty egalitarian to me, honestly.