Gender equality

The benefits of proposing an explicit gender balance outweighs the negatives. I would state it as a “at minimum, X% of the governing body must be from either genders.” with X being somewhere in the 30% to 40% range. I assume that in a functioning society, there should be no lack of qualified candidates from all socio-economic backgrounds. However, it will probably take more time to find these candidates from more disenfranchised or marginalized groups, at least for the time being. This is true for all positions, public or private, NGOs or start-ups. So, unless the argument is “we admit that we do not have the resources to dig around, and we will simply hire the first person coming out of Harvard” (which is a valid but not very palatable one), there is no reason to stop looking. Once this becomes the accepted norm, then we will reap all the benefits without all the inane quibble over fairness.