I'm still working on my rather lengthy answers to Kate and Hatman, because I think their comments are thoughtful and deserve a thoughtful response. But seriously, Noah? What magical powers do you think him being in business ought to have given him to fight structural discrimination? This is a section of my response to Hatman.
I really don't understand the suggestion that Mitt should have somehow already had women on his list. Let's face facts. There are many more corporate executives who are male than female. There are many more non-profit executives who are male than female. There are many more state legislators, county legislators, city council members who are male than female. These are obvious pools to pull from when looking for cabinet members. It stands to reason that unless you put some effort in, the pool of candidates is going to skew male. Romney was saying that there are a great many qualified, talented women out there who would do great in these jobs, but you're not going to get them without, yes, digging, because they're not in the obvious places. If you just sit back and do the same apparently gender-neutral hiring procedure you've been doing for years, you will not get as many women as men for high powered jobs. And regulation from the EEOC will not change that.
This isn't news. Structural barriers to women occupying positions of power isn't something Romney discovered. But liberals have had the theory for years that those structural problems can be solved with government-imposed social engineering. And Romney's story, whatever its truth, is at minimum a clear parable about the problems of solving social problems through legislated social engineering.
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I really don't understand the suggestion that Mitt should have somehow already had women on his list. Let's face facts. There are many more corporate executives who are male than female. There are many more non-profit executives who are male than female. There are many more state legislators, county legislators, city council members who are male than female. These are obvious pools to pull from when looking for cabinet members. It stands to reason that unless you put some effort in, the pool of candidates is going to skew male. Romney was saying that there are a great many qualified, talented women out there who would do great in these jobs, but you're not going to get them without, yes, digging, because they're not in the obvious places. If you just sit back and do the same apparently gender-neutral hiring procedure you've been doing for years, you will not get as many women as men for high powered jobs. And regulation from the EEOC will not change that.
This isn't news. Structural barriers to women occupying positions of power isn't something Romney discovered. But liberals have had the theory for years that those structural problems can be solved with government-imposed social engineering. And Romney's story, whatever its truth, is at minimum a clear parable about the problems of solving social problems through legislated social engineering.