Promoting diversity

The concept of diversity is in vogue at present. Many organisations are actively implementing plans to promote, in particular, gender diversity, which is a step towards the right direction in my view.

However, there are persistent opponents of gender diversity out there. Case in point, I have been involved in an organisation where its constitution has recently been changed to provide that the board must have at least two female directors going forward. What this practically means is that unless there are no females who can fill these roles, prospective female directors will always get preferential treatment over their male counterparts whenever there is a board election. When the vote to change the constitution took place, the opponents were outraged and vocal, even though they eventually lost the vote.

Opponents to this type of change often register their dissent on the basis that by mandating a preference for females (or other minorities, whoever they may be), we are moving to a non-merit based system, so a really crappy prospective female director could get the gig on the board in the face of a highly qualified male competitor, which could lead to sub-optimal outcomes. This argument is often dressed up as 'political correctness gone too far', which ironically is also in fashion among the populists.

While I agree that a preference for a particular minority in society to achieve diversity does put merit aside, I think it is a sensible and temporary departure because people who are not in the 'mainstream' do not start on the same level playing field as those who have the advantage of being the mainstream due to history. For a disadvantaged minority group, unless there is a systematic opportunity created to give them a leg up, they will by default always lose when they have to compete with the mainstream. Yes, well merited minority can be overlooked for the mainstream because of human nature - people tend to favour people who are similar to them. I have seen this time and time again. In many ways, it is like wealth - wealthy people tend to get wealthier because money makes money but financially disadvantaged people often get caught in the poverty cycle for generations.

Until everyone is on the same level playing field and have the same opportunities, I would gladly support initiatives to deliberately provide opportunities for those who are not in the mainstream, even if it means we have to suspend the merit based system for a while, as long as it is done in a sensible and incremental way. By definition, a day will come when we won't need these initiatives any more. Hopefully, when that day comes, we'd have a much fairer and happier society.