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"With the quotas, the veil of suspicion would be thrown over all the promoted women"

2021-01-19T18:16:32.517Z


FIGAROVOX / TRIBUNE - Bruno Le Maire declared himself in favor of the establishment of quotas on Monday to encourage women's access to important positions in large French companies. Chloé Morin actually sees it as a danger for women who climb the corporate ladder.


Chloé Morin was opinion advisor to the Prime Minister from 2012 to 2017. She is currently working as an associate expert at the Jean Jaurès Foundation.

She recently published with Decitre

Les inamovibles de la République - You will never see them, but they govern

.

On Monday, the Minister of the Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, declared himself in favor of the establishment of quotas to promote the access of women to managerial positions in large French companies.

"

The board of directors must not be the tree that hides the forest

", he said, "

If we have been successful on the boards of directors, but in the executive committee we always end up with 17% of women, frankly we have not made progress

”.

Read also:

Bruno Le Maire in favor of quotas to promote gender equality

In order to "

move up a gear

", it would therefore be necessary to go through quotas.

On December 17, 2019, the High Council for Equality between Women and Men submitted a report to the government recommending the use of the quota for executive committees and codifying listed companies (while this is already the case for the councils of administration since the Coppé-Zimmermann law of 2011).

In the process, Marlène Schiappa and Bruno Le Maire had already said in favor of this solution.

We must admit that in fact, in terms of equality in company management, we are starting a long way off: a little more than half of SBF 120 company management had reached, in 2019, the 20% threshold ( 20%!) Of women in the executive committee.

Only 7 out of 120 then posted 40% of women in their executive committee - an objective set by the High Council for Equality for 2024… A study carried out by Heidrick & Struggles and published by L'Express revealed that no less should be named 281 women to achieve these goals ...

Should we therefore sacrifice merit in order to obtain equality?

Should we give in to a stock, to better achieve a goal?

In fact, in recent years we have made real progress, thanks to a form of constraint.

In electoral matters, voluntarism made it possible to very quickly feminize the political class.

Likewise, without parity, there would still certainly be too few women in the media - COVID has shown us how difficult it is still to find "

experts

" in certain scientific fields ...

We must also recognize that, too often, the so-called "

ideological

"

hostility

to quotas, draped in republican principles, has been only an excuse, a simple pretext for inaction for those who adapt very well. of the status quo… “

Yes, ideally, there should be more women… but…

”.

To read also:

Goldnadel: "Camélia Jordana, with sexist and racist remarks, is carried to the skies by the media left"

The fact remains that many citizens, attached to equality as well as to the concept of merit and to promotion through competence, can only express deep unease with the use of quotas.

First, because it consists all the same in confusing the principle - equality of women and men, with equal skills, in front of any function - and one of its consequences - the presence of half a woman in positions "

to responsibility

”, since there is no reason that half of humanity should be less competent than the other half.

Worse, the quota can end in sacrificing the principle in order to achieve what should only be a consequence of its good application: although applied intelligently most of the time, which does not have aberrations in mind, examples where are women promoted "

to fill the quota

" when they are not in the best position with regard to the skills required?

Should we therefore sacrifice merit in order to obtain equality?

Should we give in to a stock, to better achieve a goal?

The veil of suspicion is thrown on all women promoted, whether they were promoted through the quota or not

Consequently - and this is the second reason why the notion of quota generates a certain skepticism - the veil of suspicion is thrown on all women promoted, whether they were promoted thanks to the quota or not.

You have to be told one day that you have climbed the ranks "

thanks to quotas

", or that you are invited to radio and TV "

thanks to the quota

", to grasp the violence of this presupposition.

Violence which disqualifies competence, and sweeps away the work and the sacrifices that may have been made to achieve a fair recognition of one's work.

Then, the third reason for the unease raised by the recourse to quotas: it is a failure.

The failure of an entire society to "

naturally

"

conform

to its fundamental principles, of which equality - regardless of gender, religion, or origin - is arguably the keystone.

Even supporters of "

self-regulation

" in business are now forced to recognize that we parity is not progressing fast enough.

Read also:

Gender theories, non-binarity: "The beginnings of a dehumanized civilization"

Can we really offer, for only horizon, the young people of today the fact that their great granddaughters who will see equality in the company?

Behind the recourse to the quota, in the company as elsewhere - in the fight against discrimination of all kinds, and in all places - there is indeed the obvious failure of the republican promise.

Finally, the fourth and final cause of our difficulty in accepting quotas: the abuses towards which it could lead us.

Namely, a society which, like the United States, is communitarized, and therefore tribalized, fractured.

Where the affirmative action - introduced into law by an

executive order

of President Kennedy in 1961 - gradually turned into "

preferential treatment

".

There, representation is totally disconnected from the notion of merit, or equality, and this at the cost of multiple fractures

That is to say in escalation of demands, and ultimately in favoritism for a certain number of "

categories

".

Representation was, there, totally disconnected from the notion of merit, or equality, and this at the cost of multiple fractures, and a growing resentment of a part of the population feeling "forgotten" ( this part of the population that we find massively behind Trump today ...).

From quotas of women in corporate management to tribalized American-style society, there is obviously - and fortunately - a chasm.

In view of the pace of progress made in recent years in terms of the place and remuneration of women in the company, this solution seems as necessary as it is regrettable.

To read also:

Chloé Morin: "In 2021, let's get out of our democratic apathy"

But when we advance on the path of quotas, we cannot help but wonder seriously about the gear in which we are perhaps, collectively and with the best intentions in the world, putting our finger.

Because women are not the only ones to ask, legitimately, that the Republic keep its promise of equality.

How far will we have to go…?

There is the question.

Doubtless the quota cannot - in any case, should it - be considered only as a temporary solution, to "

catch up our delay

".

But it cannot replace more structural solutions, and above all more in line with our values ​​- where are we, for example, on equality with regard to parental leave?

Or on equal pay between men and women for the same function?

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-01-19

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