Evidence From Norway Shows Gender Quotas Don't Work For Women

The country of Norway has many American admirers, from President Trump to Sen. Bernie Sanders. Progressives like Sanders consider Norway a progressive paradise, because it has implemented almost every progressive policy under the sun, from universal health care to government mandated gender equality policy in the work place.

But have these policies achieved the desired outcome that the progressives are seeking? The latest data on gender quotas in the work place from Norway and some other European countries shows a policy with a good intention doesn't necessarily translate to a good outcome.

We've all heard the argument, especially in these days, that women are well represented in the educational system and the labor force, but at the top of the power hierarchy they are still surprisingly poorly represented.

UK Channel 4 journalist Cathy Newman repeatedly said "only seven women run the FTSE 100 companies" in a recent interview of Jordan Peterson, to back up her view that male dominance in the workplace prevents women from reaching the top.

Ten years ago, Norway, the progressive paradise, took a drastic step to address this gender gap at the top of corporations. Its Minister of Trade and Industry Ansgar Gabrielsen of the Conservative Party introduced a mandatory gender quota of 40 percent for the boards of all public limited companies. The passing of this draconian law means, "If a company breaks the gender quota rules in Norway, it will be denied registration as a business enterprise in the Bronnoysund Register Centre and be subject to forced dissolution by the courts."

 Following Norway's example, a dozen other European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, adopted similar gender quotas- - 30 to 40 percent of corporate boards must be made up of women.

Ten years later, The Economist reported how the policy turned out based on data from Norway and other European countries with similar gender quota policies. On the surface, it seems the gender quota mandate achieved its desired outcome - female representation on corporate boards in these European countries increased. "In some countries the share of women among directors of large companies has increased four- or fivefold since 2007." But as always, the devil is in the details.

The Devil In The Details

Did the higher female representation on corporate boards improve corporate profitability and corporate governance as proponents promised? The data is inconclusive. Some companies saw improvement in both areas but some didn't. Did the higher female representation on corporate boards improve board's decision making as supporters claimed? Data shows that although decision making processes might have changed, the substance of the decisions and the quality of decision didn't improve by simply having more women on boards.

Now corporations in Europe are facing a shortage in finding qualified women to fill the gender quota mandates on their boards. Some reached for less qualified and less experienced women to meet the quota, which doesn't help improving corporate performance or governance. Since the law in Norway only applies to public companies, some Norwegian companies became private. The number of public limited companies in Norway dropped from 452 in 2008 to only 257 in 2013. The number of board seats dropped from 2,366 in 2008 to 1,423 in 2013. So there are fewer seats for women to fill.

The `Golden Skirts' Are Stretched Thin

But what everyone is most interested in answering is the question of whether the quota really benefited women. The answer depends on who you ask. The quota has certainly benefited a small group of women who are already high achievers and are at the top of corporate hierarchies. They are called the "golden skirts" and their numbers are very limited. Since the quota mandate led to a surge of demand for these women, many of them found more opportunities and higher pay, but they also found themselves stretched thin by serving on multiple boards.

As The Economist reported, the most puzzling information revealed by the data is that the quota mandate "had no discernible beneficial effect on women at lower levels of the corporate hierarchy." Proponents of such a policy have long promised that more women in leadership positions would translate to more career opportunities and promotions for women in the lower levels, which in turn will lead to better paying jobs and a shrinking gender pay gap. But that promise turned out to be wishful thinking.

Data shows that in France, Germany and the Netherlands, which all mandate women taking 30 to 40 percent of corporate board seats, only 10 to 20 percent of senior management jobs (one level below the board of director position) are held by women and that number has been consistent for the last 10 years. The Norwegians own study shows eight years after Norway introduced the law on gender equality in boardrooms, there are zero female CEOs in the country's 60 largest companies.

There is no data to demonstrate any higher pay or more career advancing opportunities for the vast majority of women in the workforce. Thus, having more women on the board has done little to benefit 99 percent of women in the workforce. Rather, it failed to lure more women to climb the corporate ladder and it failed to open up more mid-career opportunities and better pay.

In fact, Norway is seemingly going the wrong direction. In 2015, the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap ranked Norway as the world's second most gender equality place, with a score of 0.85, where 0 is inequality and 1 is complete equality. But in 2016, Norway's ranking dropped to the third place with a lower score of 0.84.

The logical conclusion, as The Economist presented, is that "gender quotas at board level in Europe have done little to boost corporate performance or to help women lower down." Like so many progressive policies, the mandatory quota benefits a very small elitist group at the expense of the masses, despite its slogans on "equality."

One of the reasons that we don't see more women at the top of corporate hierarchy is the choices that women make. For example, some women choose to become stay-home moms for a period of time due to the high cost of childcare. When women make that choice, they end up paying a price in their career advancement. So if society wants to see more women taking leadership roles in any organizations, one sensible policy is to make childcare more affordable.

Given the fact that the high cost of childcare is the result of government policies, getting rid of those ruinous policies will likely lower the cost of childcare, which in turn helps more women stay in workforce to climb corporate ladders. The last thing women need is a useless gender quota at the board level that does nothing for the majority of us except window dressing.

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No More Crosses? A case before the Supreme Court may settle whether memorial crosses are "unconstitutional."  

Imagine Arlington Cemetery with no crosses. Imagine the word “God” sandblasted from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Imagine Biblical verses removed from the U.S. Capitol. This is the world the radical atheists want. This is the world they almost have.

First Liberty Institute, the nation’s largest legal organization dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom, is currently appealing a case to the Supreme Court so this doesn’t happen.

Here’s how it began. In 1925, Gold Star families and the American Legion (the largest veterans service organization in the U.S.) built the 40-foot-tall Bladensburg Veteran’s Memorial, also known as the “Peace Cross,” in memory of the 49 men of Prince George’s County, Maryland, who died in World War I. The names of the 49 deceased veterans and the words “Courage,” “Valor,” “Endurance” and “Devotion” appear on the monument.

The cross stood as a peaceful memorial to the fallen veterans until February 2014, when the American Humanist Association (AHA) claimed that the monument unconstitutionally violated the Establishment Clause because of its public ownership and demanded that it be demolished, altered or removed. The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ruled in favor of the monument’s constitutionality citing the cross as a military symbol for sacrifice, courage and remembrance. However, in December 2015, the AHA appealed the decision to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the memorial was unconstitutional. On March 1, 2018, the Fourth Circuit denied the en banc rehearing, leaving an appeal to the Supreme Court as the final option.

Hiram Sasser, chief counsel for First Liberty, notes, “If [the Fourth Circuit] decision stands, other memorials, including those in nearby Arlington Cemetery, will be targeted for destruction as well.” If the decision from the Fourth Circuit stands, and the Supreme Court refuses to hear the appeal case, it would mean that all crosses on public property are “unconstitutional.”

The case rests on whether the Establishment Clause — the first sentence of the First Amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” — prohibits the public display of crosses.

The establishment of a religion means having an official, government-sponsored religion. Some have also interpreted the Establishment Clause as meaning government “neutrality.” According to the American Humanist Association’s website, the Establishment Clause also prohibits the government from “entangling itself in religious matters without a religiously neutral reason.” Government ought to be “neutral” toward religion and not favor one over the other. But a big difference exists between “neutrality” and “hostility.”

While the AHA claims “Good Without A God,” as its motto, is it fair or tolerant to force that belief on everyone else? Radical atheism does not say, “I believe in nothing, and you can believe in God if you want.” Rather, it says, “I believe in nothing and it is my right to not see, hear or experience anything about God anywhere.” Whether it is “No, you can’t pray,” or “No, you can’t put a Bible verse there,” or “No, I don’t want to see a cross” — even if it’s in the middle of the desert — the radical atheists do not seek to live in mutual tolerance. They cannot rest until they have converted all of society into a religiously sterile culture. Our legal system should not bow down to this dogmatic, anti-tolerant behavior as the “neutral” option. Rather, radical atheists should practice the tolerance they demand from others.

Following their Fourth Circuit win, AHA Senior Counsel Monica Miller, who argued the case, stated, “This is a big win not only for separation of church and state, but for all non-Christian veterans who are excluded from an enormous Christian cross war memorial.”

But how many of the fallen men were actually atheists? The families of the fallen soldiers decided on that particular shape to remember their fallen sons, brothers and husbands. Would it not dishonor their choice to remove or destroy it? If, in fact, the non-Christian veterans feel excluded, why do they not build their own non-cross memorial?

Further, while the AHA argues that the cross represents a sectarian, exclusionary religious symbol, the cross also represents military heroism. Some of the highest military honors include crosses such as the Distinguished Service Cross, the Air Force Cross, the Navy Cross, and others granted for exemplary military service. The cross also stands as an internationally recognized symbol of bravery and sacrifice as exemplified in the Victoria Cross in England and the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War) in France.

The cross also represents a memorial. These men lost their lives in a foreign war on foreign soil. While some of their bodies were later repatriated, many were buried overseas. For several families, the “Peace Cross” stood as the only place where grieving families could pay honor to their loved ones.

Michael Carvin, lead counsel for The American Legion and partner at Jones Day, notes, “This memorial has stood in honor of local veterans for almost 100 years and is lawful under the First Amendment. To remove it would be a tremendous dishonor to the local men who gave their lives during the Great War.”

The case also has bipartisan support. Eight Republican and Democrat members of Congress joined in support of the memorial by filing an amicus brief with the Fourth Circuit Court.

Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty, states, “Memorials are living reminders of our country’s history and the cost of war. How will we remember the fallen or teach the next generation about service and sacrifice if we start bulldozing veterans memorials and cemeteries across America? We will continue our work to overturn this decision and defend the memory of those who preserved freedom.”

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Identity Politics Insanity

Perhaps nothing offers greater insight into the progressive mindset than what its adherents deem proper and improper expressions of identity politics   

Perhaps nothing offers greater insight into the progressive mindset than what its adherents deem proper and improper expressions of identity politics.

“Rachel Dolezal, the troubled former NAACP leader who claimed to be African-American, is the subject of an upcoming Netflix documentary that’s already causing major backlash,” Fox News reports.

The Twitter-verse was rife with derogatory comments. “There are millions of black femmes and non-binary people in the world that deserve to be heard … and the fact that I have to see her name on my screen makes me so so so angry,” stated Lorazepam Grier. “Rachel Dolezal’s choice to play pretend in black culture has now destroyed the lives of two black children,” tweeted George M. Johnson. “Hey @Netflix, Rachel Dolezal doesn’t need a documentary streamed on your site. She’s fraudulent and problematic. Why don’t you take all that money and put it towards projects made by real black women?” asks Breniecia.

Netflix isn’t paying Dolezal anything, but they remain the eye of the leftist storm for “giving the 40-year-old a spotlight with a film that explores how she portrayed herself as African-American for years, despite being born biologically white,” Fox explains.

Biologically white? The use of biology to define one’s identity left the progressive train station long ago. So much so, that even the assertion it is a defining factor has real world consequences for those insufficiently attuned to the progressive worldview. “A student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania has been barred from attending a religious studies class required for graduation after pointing out that there are only two genders,” Campus Reform reveals.

Senior student Lake Ingle was ultimately barred from class for questioning the worldview of IUP Professor Alison Downie following a video presentation featuring a transgender woman name Paula Stone. The 15-minute video was replete with tiresome progressive tropes asserting the reality of “mansplaining,” “male privilege” and “systematic” sexism.

Following the video, Downie asked the women attending the class to share their thoughts. When none of them spoke up, Ingle rocked the proverbial boat.

“I objected to the use of the anecdotal accounts of one woman’s experience to begin a discussion in which they were considered reality,” Ingle told Campus Reform. “It was during my objection that Dr. Downie attempted to silence me.”

The next day Downie did more than that. She referred Ingle to the school’s Academic Integrity Board (AIB) and presented Ingle with a document illuminating his alleged violations: “Disrespectful objection to the professor’s class discussion structure; refusal to stop talking out of turn; angry outbursts in response to being required to listen to a trans speaker discuss the reality of white male privilege and sexism; disrespectful references to the validity of trans identity and experience; [and making a] disrespectful claim that a low score on any class work would be evidence of professor’s personal prejudice.”

The “Documented Agreement/Sanctions,” part of the document reveals conditions Ingle must fulfill to be reinstated in class. They include a letter of apology to the professor, an apology to the class, and the acknowledgement and acceptance of responsibility for “inappropriate behavior” that has “severely damaged” the class’s learning environment and the “safety” of its “atmosphere.” Moreover, when Ingle is done groveling, he is expected to “listen in silence as the professor and/or any student who wishes to speak shares how he or she felt during Lake’s disrespectful and disruptive outbursts on 2-28.”

He or she? What about “ze,” “zir,” “ve,” “tey” or the panoply of other “gender appropriate” pronouns being force-fed to the American public, even to the point where one could be fined as much as $250,000 for failing to acquiesce? Apparently IUP’s administration is as insensitive to “reality” as Ingle himself. Regardless, Ingle’s hearing is set for tomorrow and a decision will be announced on March 19. If the administration rules against him, he won’t graduate in May.

So why would progressives pillory a woman like Rachel Dolezal who insists biology doesn’t matter and pillory a student like Lake Ingle who insists it does? Because some identity politics are “more equal” than others. Identity politics that advance the progressive agenda are embraced, and those that threaten it are vilified.

Dolezal represents a mortal threat to a racial spoils system that began relatively nobly enough, with the concept of affirmative action to redress a litany of historical wrongs, perpetrated mostly by Democrats, beginning with their establishment of the Ku Klux Klan and their enforcement of Jim Crow laws. It has deteriorated to the point where black students have demanded and received segregated dorms on University of California campuses, courses on “white privilege” have become part of the public school curriculum, and the enforcement of a policy where “students of color” cannot be disciplined in school at rates disproportionate to their statistical representation in the student population engendered the calculated disinterest in the Parkland shooter until it was too late.

Yet even the racial spoils system has its “subsets.” While Dolezal is a pariah, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren remains a respected member of the Democrat Party, despite tenuous claims of Native American ancestry and the dismissal of a DNA test to prove it, one way or the other. “I know who I am because of what my mother and my father told me,” Warren insists. “It’s part of who I am and no one’s ever going to take that away.”

Still more subsets? As a discrimination lawsuit against Harvard University indicates, Asians also remain on the outside looking in. That’s because minority groups who excel without an ideological thumb on the scale to assist them represent a threat to progressive efforts to convince the nation that victimization requires the elevation of diversity over meritocracy.

The searing irony? Meritocracy still matters — in terms of determining the hierarchy of victimization among leftist grievance groups. And nothing would roil that hierarchy and its orchestrated pity parties more effectively than “trans-racialism,” and the ominous potential that anyone could claim to be a victim, based on the exact same premise as transgenderism: self-identification is the sole standard for determining reality.

So why is transgenderism championed? Because it aligns itself quite neatly with the progressive project to “fundamentally transform” America. And nothing says transformation better than the attempt to replace biological reality with gender “fluidity.” In stark contrast to racial fluidity, which threatens progressivism’s identity politics agenda, gender fluidity enhances that agenda, because it undermines traditional religious and family values.

Values that don’t require the expansion of coercive government power to enforce them.

As the Left’s contrasting reactions to trans-racialism and transgenderism indicate, intellectual consistency and honesty can be tossed aside if they don’t serve progressive interests. Thus the same CNN that put Bruce Jenner on the air to speak about his “path to womanhood” is the one that speaks to the “scandal” of Dolezal “presenting herself as black for years” — and presents a link to yet another CNN column that calls racial fluidity a “con.”

Nothing is more of a con than the contemptible notion that reality itself can be determined by whether it accrues to the Left’s twisted identity politics agenda.

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The Crisis of Fatherless Shooters

In the wake of the Parkland massacre, the age-old question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” has a newfound relevance.

As another mass school shooting stuns Americans, it is time to talk about not just how to protect students from shooters, but also about what must happen so that fewer students become shooters in the first place.

It is crucial to talk about how more American children can grow up with the emotional, psychological, and spiritual security that comes from relationships where one is deeply cared for, connected, and known.

For what lies inside so many school shooters is a deep void of identity and relationship that they tragically seek to fill through nihilistic violence.

There is a sobering theme repeated over and over in the biographies of school shooters—the fatherlessness of a broken or never formed family.

Among the 25 most-cited school shooters since Columbine, 75 percent were reared in broken homes. Psychologist Dr. Peter Langman, a pre-eminent expert on school shooters, found that most came from incredibly broken homes of not just divorce and separation, but also infidelity, substance abuse, criminal behavior, domestic violence, and child abuse.

After the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, scholar Brad Wilcox called attention to the work of criminologists Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, which found the absence of fathers to be one of the “most powerful predictors of crimes .” He explained that fathers are role models for their sons who maintain authority and discipline, thereby helping them develop self-control and empathy toward others, key character traits lacking in violent youth.

The late rapper Tupac Shakur said, “I know for a fact that had I had a father, I’d have some discipline. I’d have more confidence. Your mother can’t calm you down the way a man can. You need a man to teach you how to be a man.” Shakur, who was murdered in 1996, started hanging out with gangs because he wanted to belong to a family.

In addition to structure and discipline, a boy’s relationship with his father can be a profound source of identity—or not. Dr. Warren Farrell, author of the “The Boy Crisis,” says that when a boy asks “Who am I?” the answer is that his identity is comprised of half his dad and half his mom. If he thinks his father has abandoned him, he fears he is not worthy. Boys who do not have a strong relationship with their fathers may lack a model of healthy masculinity. Many of the school shooters struggled with a sense of “damaged masculinity” and sought to become “ultramasculine.” Langman says that at the end of this spectrum  is “getting a gun to suddenly have power.”

In fact, the fathers of three of the most infamous school shooters were absent from their sons’ lives. The father of Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, had not seen his son in two years and later told reporters he wished his son had never been born. The adoptive father of Nikolas Cruz died when Cruz was 5 years old. And the father of 6-year-old Dedrick Owens, the country’s youngest school shooter, was in jail when his son killed his first grade classmate. Dedrick Owens’ father has said that he suspects his son’s crime was a reaction to his absence.

Since the 1965 Moynihan report, the breakdown of the American family has been hotly debated. Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s finding that fatherlessness would lead to poorer outcomes for African-American children was published at a time when only 25 percent of African-American households were led by a single parent. Today, 24 percent of white non-Hispanic families are headed by a single parent and the rate has reached 66 percent among African-Americans. If we don’t reverse current trends on marriage, the number of fatherless children will only grow.

Ultimately, if we make fatherlessness and family breakdown a partisan issue, we all lose. Both Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush promoted a National Fatherhood Initiative in their administrations. Because strong marriages promote strong bonds between fathers and their children, the Trump administration should emphasize both.

A good starting place would be to reduce the marriage penalties that have been built into our welfare system. A next step would be to elevate the contributions of ordinary men doing the extraordinary work of fathering. And if we directed 1 percent of the attention and media coverage we give to athletes, musicians, and movie stars toward fathers, perhaps more boys would grow up seeing them as role models. President Donald Trump, his Cabinet, Congress, and other leaders can also use their bully pulpits to lead in this direction.

And the good news is that communities are devising creative ways to help make up for the absences of dads. One example is in Dallas, where Billy Earl Dade Middle School held its annual “Breakfast with Dads.” To ensure that all 150 male students who wanted a mentor would have one, an organizer put out a request on a Facebook page for 50 “volunteer fathers.” Nearly 600 men from all different walks of life and careers answered the call.

We cannot provide every fatherless boy with a dad, but we can start by respecting the unique role that fathers play in the lives of boys and encouraging more men to step into the lives of children who need a male role model.

To understand the brokenness of our children, Americans must take a deeper look at the brokenness of our families. We must do this together. We must be the keepers of all our country’s sons so that they can grow up to be one another’s. If we are going to prevent the next Parkland, we need to take seriously the need all our young boys and men have for a dad.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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