California Requires Women on Corp Boards by law.

[Dr H]

That doesn't seem to be a problem (in this case) in countries that have already implemented these requirements.

Furthermore, research has shown that corporate boards that include women correlate with better firm performance, and that "forcing" a corporate board gender quota seems to have no impact [harmful or otherwise] on firm performance.

https://piie.com/publications/wp/wp16-3.pdf

I have never questioned the wisdom of having women on these boards.  And the hypothetical situation described by Rob may never arise.  But if it does, it's going to end up in court, and it's best to be prepared for the eventuality.

That's part of the fight.

If you say so.  If so, it's the easy and least effective part of the fight.
It's relatively easy to get local laws passed; enforcing them and making them produce useful results is another story.

It comes through both ways and through other ways.

It's not about just revamping any system. It's about fairness as well.

Well, you were the one who brought up revamping the system, and I was addressing that.

From my POV we do need to revamp the system.  You can't build a sound new house with the same rotten lumber from the old one, no matter how much you rearrange it.  Institutional bias is built-in to the current system, and if internal controls were sufficient to change that, it would have been changed by now.

What are these more effective means? Why are we not seeing them planned and implemented,
and instead we have privileged men like us (I'm assuming you're a man ... if not, my apologies) telling women their inclusion in corporate boards is not necessarily the best idea because?

Social movements.  And we are seeing them:  third-and fourth wave feminism; Me Too; He for She; #TIMESUP; GEMS; Planet 50-50; and a host of others.

Yes, I understand. In fact, I said as much in another recent thread.

Then to that extent, we agree.

At the same time, however, we can't continue to condone unfairness stemming from male privilege and yielding forever to "privilege and chauvinism speak". That's just continuing to enable sexist attitudes. It doesn't help mitigate the biases in any way whatsoever.

Nor did I suggest that we should.

Laws, however, are things; education is a process.  You can, to a certain extent, force behavior with a law, IF you have adequately provided for enforcement and the inevitable contingencies. But a law can't force people to become educated.  At best, laws are a short-term stop-gap, and at worst they breed resentment and knee-jerk reaction.  

Because of that, I feel the effort is a relative waste of time.  We Americans are really fond of the feel-good quick-fix.  Trouble is, quick "fixes" rarely, if ever, address the real underlying problems that need fixing.  As an earlier poster pointed out, we pat ourselves on the back for winning the skirmish, and then get overrun when the rest of the battle catches up with us, losing what we've gained, and then some.  One step forward and two steps back.

Look at the social progress of the past two decades, currently being undermined by the jackass in the Oval Office who never should have been allowed within spitting distance of Pennsylvania Avenue.  We did that to ourselves, by losing our sense of perspective.