Germany's Gender Quotas for Corporate Boardrooms Get Collective Yawn

They're so progressive over there (*cough, cough*).

At Der Spiegel, "Boardroom Quotas: The Slow Pace of Gender Equality in Corporate Germany":

Germany's statutory gender quota for supervisory boards took effect at the beginning of the year, yet the ratio of women to men is still alarmingly low. Many companies don't even seem to realize that the new law applies to them.

Sometimes, in cases when the present seems less than appealing, remembering the past can be helpful. Take the year 2001, for instance. Deutsche Bank's then-CFO and eventual supervisory board chairman Clemens Börsig was appearing before a congress of European businesswomen when he took the liberty of advising the approximately 1,000 participants to orient their career ambitions not only vertically, but "horizontally" as well. There are plenty of positions to be had in middle management, he said, women don't always have to set their sights on the highest positions.

When the women in the audience started laughing, Börsig apparently didn't even understand why.

It's comforting to think that no board member at Deutsche Bank -- or any other major industry player for that matter -- would dare suggest such a thing today. It goes without saying that women are as deserving of a place in the upper echelons of Europe's largest economy -- and that they are as qualified academically and as esteemed -- as their male counterparts. Political and societal pressure is just too great to deny women's access to leadership positions, top jobs and, consequently, power.

Oh, really?

In May last year, the so-called "Law on Equal Participation of Women and Men in Leadership Positions in the Private and Public Sector" came into effect. It was meant to ensure that at least 30 percent of all supervisory board positions in Germany's largest companies are held by women. Since Jan. 1 of this year, these firms must fill vacant board positions with women until that 30 percent threshold is reached. Furthermore, around 3,500 other public companies are also required to present a strategy for getting more women into top jobs.

It's a law that above all shows one thing: Not a whole lot has changed since Börsig's revealing remarks about the advancement of women. It has been known for two years that a binding quota was imminent, yet the ratio of female to male board members at the 102 companies that are either listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange or that have employee participation in decision-making still stands at 23.1 percent. For all the talk of inclusion in the last year, that number has risen by only 1.8 percent...

Well, I'm sure they'll have plenty of Muslima refugees flooding into the workplace pipeline in no time. I mean, isn't that the intent of the whole "welcoming" thing, to relieve the stress on the German economy from declining population ratios?

Actually, who knows? Everything's all pretty much fucked up nowadays, thanks to radical leftist ideology and craven political correctness.

But keep reading, FWIW.