My six years in the USA makes me see affirmative action, or positive discrimination, as something natural. It works. USA is an insanely heterogeneous society. Modern America has gargantuan problems that were started way back in the Wild West with the treatment of slaves, Indians and others. The alienation in suburbs such as Rinkeby, Rosengård and Biskopsgården is nothing compared to the challenge Uncle Sam has to handle to hold the nation together. That is why the medicine is so much stronger over there. They have been busing kids between schools in richer and poorer neighborhoods for almost 50 years. No Swedish politician would even dare suggesting something like that over here.
In Wisconsin I had a roommate who dated a black girl studying toward her MBA. A black woman with the right training to join management. Drewnita was hot. For a while every other phone call was a recruiter. A swedish daughter of immigrants can get her Ph.D. without getting even close to Drewnitas hotness on the job market.
The most respected MBA program in the world is the one at Harvard. The first priority in recruiting students for this program is diversity. At Harvard, they understand that diversity is as important as knowledge and intelligence when it comes to decision making. Racial or gender quotas are not applicable at Harvard. They passed that mile stone long ago.
My point is: Corporate USA is not exactly lagging the rest of the world. We talk about affirmative action as if it was contrary to doing business. Most American business leaders understand that diversity is an essential part of the dynamic they need.
Most female board members are against affirmative action. This may be a politivally necessary point of view. But then, women are right in that without affirmative action they would not have to “be sharper and more up to date than everyone else” as Siri Wikander writes in her excellent blog, arguing against affirmative action. I agree. Without affirmative action that need would never have arisen. The women would never have been invited in the first place.
Our behaviors are molded by the structures we have. Today’s structures are the result of yesterday’s behaviors. Altering that cycle is difficult. The ghettos of Chicago are partly an effect of the slavery that once was part of the American way of life. Changing a pattern can take that long. “Men recruit men” is such a pattern. When I moved back from the states 20 years ago there was much talk about women in boards. Unfortunately, I’ll probably be retiring before seeing more than the token evenly mixed board.
There is hard and softer quotas. The Norwegian law that publicly held companies must have at least 40 percent women in the board is rather strong medicine, but there are signs that it is working. The education level of Norwegian boards has increased. According to the large study by Adams & Ferreira we can expect Norwegian boards to have gotten more active. This also fits with what we see when we split a company into single gender groups, unevenly mixed groups and evenly mixed groups. Evenly mixed groups have the highest motivation, followed by unevenly mixed groups. Single gender groups the least attractive working environments.
Siri Wikander suggests that we change the way companies report as a way of promiting women in boards. That amounts to “affirmative action light”. It is not bad, but the negatives are exactly the same as for quotas.
Women overcompensating by coming better prepared to board meetings is natural and good. That is how they create a better situation for the next generation of female board members.