Letters to the Editor: Women shouldn’t have to wait for men to put more of us on corporate boards

To the editor: Research overwhelmingly shows that discrimination and bias do exist in hiring practices. That is a fact. The law mandates equality in hiring practices, but if we wait on white men or men in general to hire more women and minorities, including for corporate boards, too much time will go by before gender balance is achieved.

Columnist Nicholas Goldberg worries that California’s law establishing quotas for women on corporate boards could put us on a slippery slope to similar quotas in government, which exist elsewhere in the world. There is nothing wrong with other countries setting quotas for women and minorities in parliament.

We have always been standing up, but the fox is guarding the hen house. Thanks for your opinion, Mr. Goldberg, but women and minorities will continue to use legislative power to change things.

Marie Mulligan, Manhattan Beach

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To the editor: If one is the owner or a major stakeholder of a company and the law stipulates that a business should have a woman on the board of directors, then make sure a female member of the family has an MBA. She could take it online at “Podunk State University” and thus be qualified to sit on the board.

Women are smart enough that they don’t need to be coddled by boards of directors with quotas. Men understand this and want the best man or woman for the job. After all, the business of America is business.

This is an unnecessary law that denigrates intelligent, qualified women, and it will be seen by all including the women serving on boards as tokenism.

Mark Walker, Yorba Linda

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To the editor: I’m also a progressive like Goldberg, and I too believe it should not be mandated to corporations as to whom sits on their boards.

What I think would be both legal and more effective is for journalists to report on major corporations that lack diversity on their boards, be it gender, race or any other social stakeholders. This would give us an opportunity to decide how we want to spend our money and which corporations we may want to boycott.

Ron Garber, Duarte