I like Bryan Caplan. He is incredibly smart, thoughtful and engaging person. Another reason why I like, one that I have recently learned of. Perhaps noticed would be better here, I have seen this trait in him plenty before but never quite noticed it. To be clear, I like him is because very often he can be incredibly belligerent.
Like I have just mentioned there are many examples of this. He has done so many of the same immigration open border debates with the same person, Mark Krikorian.
Following up a decade long if not longer “debate” with Scott alexander and as Tyler Cowen points out posting arguments against state capacity libertarianism.
Now it seems that he has a new topic of focus. His recent obsession is the difference between the left and right, with the Lewis brothers’ book The Myth of Left and Right.
While I believe the terms are quite fuzzy, left and right that is, I appreciate Caplan’s belligerence for not letting the argument go if he still believes there’s more in there that can be squeezed and brought out into the open and discussed and clarified.
Out of his last 16 posts, paywalled ama’s excluded, Caplan dedicated 6 posts to the topic, ranging from an interview he did with the Lewis brothers with Robin Hanson as co-interviewer, a lecture about his own left-right theory, and replies by the each brother , a lecture by Dan Klein on the same topic and a reply to Hyrum’s reply.
I think that this discourse teaches us a few things. First of all it shows how poorly described fascism is and that extreme ideologies automatically cause some issues with terms. However I think Caplan is extremely pragmatic in this area as this does not worry him. He’s not trying to describe extreme ideologies, he just wants to talk about the majority of people and the majority of people don’t possess (or aren’t possessed by) extreme ideologies.
So while the Lewis Brothers’ framework allows for more individual labelling it actually misses the point. It seems to make it harder to talk about general issues with a ‘slightly more’ accurate framework that includes rare extremes rather than sacrificing the extremes to make discourse easier and avoiding ‘pre-discourses’ where everything must put all their terms on the table and sort them out before they can have an actual discussion.
Caplan and Hanson basically argue that its not accurate enough to switch to their method of labelling for a few reasons, their argument is slightly flawed as ideologies are neither completely tribal nor ‘essentialist’. But I hasten to add the answer may not be in the middle.
In the essentialist theory, parties can move “leftward” or “rightward” on the spectrum as they change their relationship to the single essential issue,
The Myth of Left and Right
So we must consider that you’re explanatory power should be fairly strong and then your terms should also serve the wider discourse where using your terms is not only more accurate but easier for people to use and get their head around. We might call this a type IV error which seems to be fairly common in psychology and political science especially when it comes to ideology and ideological terms.
We’re arguing about the definition of “mental disorder”, but in some sense this is a pointless fight. I’ve pointed out a useful category (mental conditions which are bad for people and society). Emil has pointed out a useful category (mental conditions which are bad for reproductive fitness). Why not just admit that these are two useful categories? Why not come up with separate names for them – disorder-(Scott) vs. disorder-(Emil), or maybe social-disorder vs. evofitness-disorder – and use the separate names, so everyone’s on the same page? If someone asked whether homosexuality was a mental disorder, we could confidently answer “It’s not a disorder-(Scott), but it is a disorder-(Emil)”.
…
I think Emil should have to make up the new word, because:
There are a few thousand evolutionary psychologists, and a few hundred million normal people who want to talk about mental disorders for normal reasons (like because they have them).
Evolutionary psychologists are smart people and can probably coordinate on new terminology and move on, whereas normal people have brought the US to the brink of civil war over pronouns.
The pressure of normal people using words to discuss their own mental health problems is so strong that whatever term they use will dominate the discourse no matter what. Even if we tried to let evolutionary psychologists keep the word “mental disorder”, and forced the rest of the world to use something like “social disorder”, the concept of social disorders would be so much more salient that we’d have to get into fights over whether homosexuality was a social disorder, and then re-litigate this whole process.
being the mistake of “the incorrect interpretation of a correctly rejected hypothesis”; which, they suggested, was the equivalent of “a physician’s correct diagnosis of an ailment followed by the prescription of a wrong medicine” (1970, p. 398).
I would still like to see terms described a bit more accurately but I think most people get the idea and understand how to use the terms. Albeit perhaps not fascism and communism and other extreme terms which are bandied around rather too often for my liking. The terms quickly lose all meaning and something you don’t like can’t immediately be the worst thing ever.
We should accept that left and right are broadly similar across societies but historical and societal context can certainly mould them to be different depending on the country. It is also important to note that left is probably more stable cross-culturally and internationally whereas right or conservative is more different between countries because each country is conserving something different, as noted by Douglas Murray and Roger Scruton. The conservatives in China are the communists, the conservatives in France are republicans and the conservatives in the UK are royalists. These are all broad brush strokes but I think true enough for our purposes. I’d like to see more research on this and if you know of any that exists, send it my way.
What is legal is not necessarily moral and what is illegal isn’t automatically immoral. Some laws are morality laws and some laws come from bureaucratic bloat and some from partisan compromise and the list goes on. One easy example, the kind to which I am not referring to, is jaywalking, the act of crossing the road where there is no official crossing point.
One example is when slavery was legal. I am in no way saying that slavery is or was moral.
Another example is the right to refuse service. Just because you can doesn’t mean it’s moral. Plus the reverse its not moral to force someone to serve someone else.
Don’t let laws guide your morality otherwise you will be dictated to by the winds of the day.
1 Poem
I still recall … By Alexander Pushkin
I still recall the wondrous moment:
When you appeared before my sight
As though a brief and fleeting omen,
Pure phantom in enchanting light.
In sorrow, when I felt unwell,
Caught in the bustle, in a daze,
I fell under your voice’s spell
And dreamt the features of your face.
Years passed and gales had dispelled
My former hopes, and in those days,
I lost your voice’s sacred spell,
The holy features of your face.
Detained in darkness, isolation,
My days began to drag in strife.
Without faith and inspiration,
Without tears, and love and life.
My soul attained its waking moment:
You re-appeared before my sight,
As though a brief and fleeting omen,
Pure phantom in enchanting light.
And now, my heart, with fascination,
Beats rapidly and finds revived
Devout faith and inspiration,
And tender tears and love and life.
Translated by Andrey Kneller
1 Picture
Roman Capriccio: The Colosseum and Other Monuments
1 Essay
Riotous Genius
Wallace’s grim fate left me worried that going back to read him for the purposes of this essay would be, at best, a bittersweet experience. It wasn’t. He was such an egghead that the lingering memory of his work can be one of difficult, sometimes opaque brilliance, but the actual experience of reading it is riotous. Even in the shadow of his suicide, Wallace’s voice on the page is so distinctive and so human (if a little Rain Man-y at times) that he seems to remain alive, which I guess is the ultimate test for all writers, eventually. Up until 2 a.m. reading his essays the other night, I only felt a twinge of sadness after I put down the book and went to bed.
Even when he was writing about depression or delusions, Wallace could stick the landing on jokes like nobody else. Take this long sentence from Infinite Jest:
He’d kept noticing mice scurrying around his room, mice as in rodents, vermin, and when he lodged a complaint and demanded the room be fumigated at once and then began running around hunched and pounding with the heel of a hand-held Florsheim at the mice as they continued to ooze through the room’s electrical outlets and scurry repulsively about, eventually a gentle-faced nurse flanked by large men in custodial whites negotiated a trade of shoes for Librium, predicting that the mild sedative would fumigate what really needed to be fumigated.
Oddly, it’s the writing that tends to get lost in discussions of Wallace, whose brains and ambitions often receive focus at the expense of his actual sentences. There was something physical about both him (a lumberjack of a guy with a Mount Rushmore-sized head) and his prose that made people consider him in a way they normally reserve for athletes, not authors.
But it isn’t Wallace the inscrutable colossus who will last, it’s Wallace the careful craftsman. Here are just a very few (criminally few) of the images I rediscovered in the days immediately after his death:
On campaign-trail beverages: “coffee that tastes like hot water with a brown crayon in it.”
On a veteran New York Times reporter: she wore “a perpetual look of concerned puzzlement, as if life were one long request for clarification…”
On a third-party candidate winning the presidency in the imagined future of Infinite Jest: “…the Dems and G.O.P.s stood on either side watching dumbly, like doubles partners who each think the other’s surely got it…”
From The Broom of the System, his first novel: “Through the giant window high over the cubicle a thin spear of the orange-brown light of a Cleveland sunset, saved and bent for a moment by some kindly chemical cloud around the Erieview blackness, fell like a beacon on the soft patch of cream just below Lenore’s right ear, on her throat.”
On the protagonists in John Updike’s fiction: “Though usually family men, they never really love anybody — and, though always heterosexual to the point of satyriasis, they especially don’t love women.”
On South Carolina during the 2000 presidential campaign: “You can tell it must be spooky down here in the summer, all wet moss and bog-steam and dogs with visible ribs and everybody sweating through their hat.”
One more, also about South Carolina: “The central-SC countryside looks blasted, lynched, the skies the color of low-grade steel, the land all dead sod and broomsedge, with scrub oak and pine leaning at angles, and you can almost hear the mosquitoes breathing in their baggy eggs awaiting spring.”
I’ve seen entire horror movies that aren’t as creepy as the last nine words of that sentence, and I’ve read poems that aren’t as lyrical.
El Himno de Andalucía (performed*) By Rocío Jurado
1 Quote
These early days of AI are already absurd. Humans, walking and talking bags of water and trace chemicals that we are, have managed to convince well-organized sand to pretend to think like us. We don’t know what will happen next, and what dangers and opportunities the next generations of AI will bring. But we do need to realize that trying to convince ourselves that AI is normal software will not protect us from disruption. Instead, it may make it harder for us to see what is coming.
In the same piece from which the quote is taken, Ethan Mollick reiterates the vital point that (generative) AI is still a relatively new tool(?) and we should be experimenting with it and learning how to use as much and as soon as possible.
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.
Philip Larkin
1 Picture
A Sunny Day
1 Essay
In Praise of Shadows: Ancient Japanese Aesthetics and Why Every Technology Is a Technology of Thought
Although Tanizaki is writing at a time when a new wave of polymers was sweeping the industrialized West, he paints a subtler and more important contrast than that between the Western cult of synthetics and the Japanese preference for organic materials. This elegant osmosis of art and shadow, he argues, is to be found not only in what materials are used, but in how they are being used:
Wood finished in glistening black lacquer is the very best; but even unfinished wood, as it darkens and the grain grows more subtle with the years, acquires an inexplicable power to calm and sooth.
This temporal continuity of beauty, a counterpoint to the West’s neophilia, is central to Japanese aesthetics. Rather than fetishizing the new and shiny, the Japanese sensibility embraces the living legacy embedded in objects that have been used and loved for generations, seeing the process of aging as something that amplifies rather than muting the material’s inherent splendor. Luster becomes not an attractive quality but a symbol of shallowness, a vacant lack of history:
We find it hard to be really at home with things that shine and glitter. The Westerner uses silver and steel and nickel tableware, and polishes it to a fine brilliance, but we object to the practice… We begin to enjoy it only when the luster has worn off, when it has begun to take on a dark, smoky patina. Almost every householder has had to scold an insensitive maid who has polished away the tarnish so patiently waited for.
[…]
We do not dislike everything that shines, but we do prefer a pensive luster to a shallow brilliance, a murky light that, whether in a stone or an artifact, bespeaks a sheen of antiquity.
Tanizaki speaks affectionately of “the glow of grime,” which “comes of being touched over and over” — a record of the tactile love an object has acquired through being caressed by human hands again and again.
But nowhere does Tanizaki’s ode to shadows flow more melodically than in his writing about Japanese lacquerware:
Darkness is an indispensable element of the beauty of lacquerware… [Traditional lacquerware] was finished in black, brown, or red, colors built up of countless layers of darkness, the inevitable product of the darkness in which life was lived.
Maria Popova
This is essentially a Zuckerberg-Newport dichotomy rather than East Vs West. Don’t fear technology, leverage it but never lose sight and why you are using it. Furthermore make sure it is you that is using (controlling(?)) the technology not the reverse.
This essay also reminded me of:
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold — built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art.
There is beauty in use and wear and tear, rather than buying the best brand new thing. To misuse a term it is creative destruction but also rebirth. It is as if they are repairing their tools with the blood of a Phoenix and giving them a second life or more appropriately a new life. It is now a new thing. See the Ship of Theseus.
N.B. Harry Potter has taught us that Unicorn blood is silver, so by inference Phoenix blood is gold.
I have returned back to base. Back to where I have grown up, lived my entire life, to what I have always known. It was certainly quite an adventure. I spent a little over a month in Costa Rica living with a family, then a few months later I spent the better half of a year in the South of Spain, then I took a trip to Washington D.C. and then returning to Spain for a short trip.
Something I might touch on more at a different time is that one must not only consider Washington D.C. to be the Capital of the United States of America but also the Capital of the free world but it feels incredibly bureaucratised and securitised. The U.S.A. pays above and beyond its NATO contributions, about 3% of its GDP. The base level contribution is 2% of GDP. Fortunately since 2014 when only 3 countries paid this 2% or more, has since become 10 in 2021. I read that in in 2022 it was 11 countries but I couldn’t find which country. Although I didn’t look very hard. If it really matters to you then you can look up the information and share it with me but it adds nothing to this blog post, it might add something to a dissertation though.
Greece — 3.82% $8,014
United States — 3.52% $811,140
Croatia — 2.79% $1,846
United Kingdom — 2.29% $72,765
Estonia — 2.28% $787
Latvia — 2.27% $851
Poland — 2.10% $13,369
Lithuania — 2.03% $1,278
Romania — 2.02% $5,785
France — 2.01% $58,729
Germany is notably lacking from the top top list with 1.53% even though nominally (?) it provides $64,785 which is the third highest total amount after the UK and more than France. Why it can’t or won’t(?) pay 0.47% of its GDP is beyond me. If you know the answer please let me know.
Perhaps this is to appease Russia so it keeps sending natural gas to Germany. Those darn incentives. I also understand that NATO has become somewhat unpopular or at the very least a polemic. Some anti-intervention conservatives see it as basically global US security and intervention (i.e. escalating already tense geo-political conflicts, battles and wars). For some reason there has also been some controversy over the use of the word conflict versus war or battle so I have used all three.
Some leftists basically see it as USA empire expansion. Yes I am aware it is a gross simplification of their views and their ideological bent. After reading the exchange between Bryan Caplan and Hyrum and Verlan Lewis, I have becoming increasing suspicious of the dubious left right titles. I am eager to read their book and take a deeper dive into their arguments
Anyway, what most overlook about US fical, monetary (I still dont understand or know if there is a difference) and military support across the world is that it actually helps to protect the sovereignty of a few nations across the globe, namely in Eastern Europe and South East Asia. Unfortunately Latin America has only ever really been at threat from itself. Any soviet intervention was very light and not really a threat. By this I dont mean that the Soviets didnt invest a lot. They were basically the only consumers of Cuban sugar but what they did do over there did not threaten the sovereignty of any Latin American countries nor the security of the USA. Here you might object with the Cuban missile crisis but from my reading and understanding of that event, the Cubans were agitating while the Soviet Union actually helped to avoid and avert the crisis. So the bad reputation the USA still has in Latin America is its own fault but as Unherd, recently noted the collective imagination of those hard days is slowly fading with new generations replacing the old like new fruits replacing the old on the same tree, and this gives the USA a chance of redemption, especially in Guatemala.
What I have been trying to say is that in general the US is a force for good and should be heavily criticised and fought when it is not. The reason why geo-political analysts and bloggers and researchers and news anchors and ambassadors and professional politicians and bureacrats have jobs is because it is not always clear when it is acting as a force for good or evil, good or evil for whom, what does this terms even mean, what are the costs, good or evil compared to what and a myriad of other questions not to mention it is usually grey. Maybe we should move Beyond good and evil.
Any man may be a king in that life in which he is placed if so be he may draw forth the sword of success from out of the iron of circumstance.
Howard Pyle
1 Idea
Write your outline or what you plan to write the day before, just before you go to bed.
This allows you to circumvent Hemingway’s “rule” about stopping before you have finished or said all you have to say that day. By writing the outline the night before, you can go to sleep and let all the magical jucies and chemicals bubbling and frothing inside you to ferment overnight and produce some great ideas for your next day of writing.
Furthermore this is a particularly good idea if you are leaving a day or two between writing sessions.
1 Poem
On Passing The New Menin Gate
Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
the unheroic dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,-
Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?
Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own.
Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp;
Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone,
The armies who endured that sullen swamp.
Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride
'Their name liveth for ever', the Gateway claims.
Was ever an immolation so belied
as these intolerably nameless names?
Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime
Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.
Siegfried Sassoon
1 Picture
On the Seashore By Vicente Romero Redondo
1 Essay
Two ways to read a poem
You can read a poem “from without,” or you can read it “from within,” says R. K. Elliott, in a paper he titled “Aesthetic Theory and the Experience of Art,” and published in 1967, the year of Sgt Pepper and of Are You Experienced?; Elliott was 43. If you read a poem from without, you experience it “as if it were the speech or thought of another person.” That’s how we’re taught to read a poem in high school: the words of the poem are the words of the “speaker,” and the speaker is not you. For some poems, this is the only way to read. Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess for example; few of us are apt to confuse ourselves with the speaker of that poem.
When one reads “from within,” on the other hand, one experiences the poem “as if one were the poet or artist”—or, really, the speaker: “the reader place[s] himself, in imagination, at the point from which the poet is related to the situation given in the poem.”
This was a paper I wrote last autumn and I wanted to share it hear. As always any and all thoughts, disagreements and criticisms are welcome. As all papers do it started at one point and morphed into something I didn’t expect or plan on writing about. I have tried to look at how different methods have affected the number of women in important job positions. I classify these jobs as those with economic decision making power i.e. board members of public European countries. While there were other standards I could have used I used this benchmark as it came with most widely available statistics and most legislature focused on this cohort of women. I hope you enjoy reading it.
Summary
Women are underrepresented on corporate boards across Europe. One of the biggest tools European governments have utilised to combat this disparity is gender diversity quotas that mandate a proportion of women that must be board members. Some countries have adopted a voluntary approach while others have opted for neither mandatory nor voluntary quotas. This paper looks at existing literature on the effectiveness of diversity quotas and then compares a selection of European countries from the mandatory group, voluntary group and zero quota group. This paper finds that not having any quotas is the least effective method of increasing female representation. The results of mandatory and voluntary quotas are very similar. This paper concludes that a combination of approaches, namely welfare reform and a gender quota is most effective, as well as making sure that you have the support of businesses that will bear the weight of the legislation. This analysis applies to policymakers across Europe who are trying to improve gender equality in economic decision-making positions.
Table of Abbreviations
EIGE European Institute for Gender Equality
EU European Union
LLCs Limited liability companies
PLCs Public limited companies
OHCHR Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
UK United Kingdom
Table of Contents
1Introduction
2Overview of Quotas
3Hard Quotas
3.1 The Norwegian pioneers
3.2 Belgium and Italy
4Zero quotas
4.1 Czech Republic
4.2 Hungary
4.3 Slovakia
5Soft Quotas
5.1 Variations of targets
5.2 Results
6Conclusion
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Bibliography
1 Introduction
Diversity is not only a matter of fairness. It also drives growth and innovation. The business case for having more women in leadership is clear – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.[1]
Women are underrepresented on corporate boards and positions of economic decision-making across Europe with the EU28 average of 32.3%.[2] A prominent strategy that European governments have implemented to address this disparity is a gender quota. Gender quotas are usually implemented for two principal reasons: the business case is that gender diversity improves firms’ performance.[3] The other is the moral case, that it is morally wrong for women to be underrepresented in economic decision-making positions such as members of a board or non-executives.[4] This paper looks at three groups of countries, those with mandatory quotas, ‘soft’ quotas and no quotas. The paper is researching this topic with the backdrop of an “avalanche” of diversity quotas sweeping across Europe and the European Union (EU) directive to mandate 40% of women, as non-executives.[5]
This paper will first have a look at existing literature on diversity quotas and their perceived effectiveness. Then the paper will look at European countries that have implemented mandatory quotas. Then the paper will explore European countries that have soft quotas and then European countries with no quotas. The paper will then conclude if mandatory quotas are the most effective method of increasing female representation in European countries in the 21st century and if any other factors should be considered.
2 Overview of Quotas
The literature on diversity quotas can be divided into two. One reports that ‘hard’ quotas are the most effective method.[6] Some studies found that interventions need to be legally binding to have a significant impact on improving female representation.[7] Others point out that mandatory policies are ineffective at improving female representation because companies try to avoid the legislation, reducing the pool of companies where women can work as board members and non-executives.[8] Some literature suggests that soft quotas can improve female representation but will not be effective if they do not target every firm. In addition, the full support and commitment of the government is required.[9] Alternative strategies like improving welfare and diminishing stereotypes may be effective but these strategies work better when used in conjunction with other strategies such as ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ quotas.[10]
3 Hard Quotas
3.1 The Norwegian pioneers
Norway was the first European Country to introduce gender quotas for Publicly listed company boards. In 2003 pre-quota Norway, public companies had less than 10% women on boards. Then Norway revised the Public Limited Liability Act in 2003 which mandated a 40% gender quota, giving companies two years to meet the target and ensure the legislation wouldn’t be passed.[11] This target was not met by 2005, so companies were then given until 2008 to comply with the quota or face the predetermined sanctions.[12] This legislation seems to have been effective in increasing the number of women on Public Limited Liability Company (PLC) boards. The proportion of women on PLC boards is much higher than for Limited Liability Companies (LLCs). Women have constantly represented 15-16% on boards of LLCs since 2004 whereas women have made up 40% of PLC boards since 2009, increasing linearly since women made up 10% of public boards in 2004, 5% less than LLCs of the same year.[13] The increase can likely be attributed to the implementation of the ‘threat’ legislation in 2005 and the enforcement of sanctions in 2008.[14] The regulation’s ultimate sanction for not complying was the forced dissolution of the company.[15] The rule affected all PLCs from 2008.[16] LLCs were not subject to the mandatory 40% quota of women on boards and the policy did not have any influencing effect on LLCs.[17] Furthermore, the quota led to public Norwegian companies restructuring to avoid the quota or leaving the country.[18] In 2009 there were less than 70% of PLCs in 2001 and a more than 30% increase of LLCs outside of the quota.[19] The remaining companies did not increase representation past the quota.[20] Norwegian LLCs with fewer female board members than PLCs, had a higher proportion of female general managers, both suggesting that the quota has no effect beyond its remit and it fails to improve the representation of women’s economic decision-making in general.[21]
3.2 Belgium and Italy
Other countries with similar legislation are Belgium and Italy. They all requested a “large” increase of women on boards, on PLCs which are easily identifiable, and the scope of the legislation is medium in Belgium and Norway and medium to narrow in Italy.[22] The scope is the number of companies the quota applies to in comparison to the whole economy.[23] Belgium and Italy started their gender quota in 2011.[24] However, they each had different implementation dates. Belgium’s compliance date was 2018 to achieve the 33% quota, while in Italy companies had to achieve 20% by 2012, and 33% by 2015 with the legislation set to expire in 2022.[25] Instead, Italy increased the quota to 40% and made the legislation permanent. [26]
While Italy failed to reach its 20% target in 2012 and 2015 only achieving 10.8% and 28.6% female board members respectively,[27] it did achieve 33.6% female non-executives by 2015.[28] Italy has had above 33% female board members since 2015 and 40% female non-executives since 2017 peaking with 46.2% of female non-executives on large listed companies by 2022.[29] Italy used similar sanctions to Norway, both opting for a stepwise process, first warning non-compliant companies, then taking economic action against them however differing in the final step with Norway, which dissolves a non-compliant company whereas Italy removes board members.[30] Both Norway and Italy have more than 40% of each gender as non-executives on large listed companies whereas Belgium has 39.8% female non-executives in 2022.[31] Belgium threatens the “open seat” or “empty seat” sanction, where any vacant board positions have to be filled with the underrepresented sex in this case women or the seat will remain empty.[32] Belgium also threatens to suspend benefits for directors until the quota has been met.[33] Currently, Belgium has 37.1% female board members, Italy has 39.6% and Norway has 41.1% all above the EU28 average of 32.3%.[34] However, Italy has not met its new target of 40% female board members.
In 2011 Belgium had 10.9% female board members of large, listed companies, in 2018 they had 32% and in 2019 they had 34.4% just meeting the target of 33% which was a large increase from the proportion of female representation before the quota.[35] In 2012 Belgium had 14.1% female non-executives, increasing to 34.9% female non-executives in 2018 and 39.8% in 2022.[36] In 2011 Italy had 5.9% female board members and only 10.2% in 2012, by 2015 they had 28.6% female board members and in 2022 they have 39.6%. In 2012 Italy had 12.7% female non-executives which increased to 33.6% in 2015 and 46.2% in 2022. This suggests that countries, given sufficient time and a target to aim for can comply with legislation. In addition, it is plausible to suggest that the sanctions were strong enough deterrents to ensure high rates of compliance with the legislation.
4 Zero quotas
4.1 Czech Republic
The countries that have not implemented any quotas, ‘soft’ or ‘hard,’ are Central and Eastern European countries like the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.[37] The Czech Republic has made other commitments for example signing a joint declaration with France and Sweden to prioritise economic empowerment for women.[38] It has also introduced a ‘Gender Equality Strategy’ for 2021-2030. The strategy looks at gender representation and promotes strategies to improve female representation in economic decision-making.[39] The Czech Republic saw a low of 3.5% female board members and non-executives in 2014 with the EU28 average of 20.2% and 22%, although this is anomalous.[40] Throughout the early 2000’s the average of female board members and non-executives was between 10-15% gradually increasing to 15-22% from 2017 to 2022.[41] While the Czech Republic does not come close to the EU28 average, it has only recently introduced strategies to improve female representation in positions of important economic decision-making.
4.2 Hungary
Hungary does not have any gender quotas and it is illegal to use any form of positive discrimination based on the candidate’s sex.[42] The lowest figure of female non-executives was 5.5% in 2012 was well below the EU28 average of 17.2% for the same year.[43] Even its highest figure of 18.1% of female non-executives still falls short of 28.8% for the EU28 average for 2018.[44] In addition, female representation for board members in Hungarian companies reached a low of 5.3% while achieving a high of 17.8% in 2015.[45] From 2011 onwards female board members in Hungary stayed between 10% and 15%. In contrast, the EU28 average moved up to 20% and eventually reached 30% in 2020.[46] Hungary has not had a higher percentage of female board members than the EU28 average since 2010.[47] Hungary’s lack of quota or national strategy to reduce gender stereotypes like the Czech Republic or Slovakia almost guarantees low female representation in these economic decision-making positions.
4.3 Slovakia
Finally, Slovakia, another country that hasn’t implemented any sort of quota. It had, the first document of its kind in Slovakia addressing gender equality a National Strategy for Gender equality (2007-2013)” bolstered by the “National Action Plan for Gender equality (2010-2013)”.[48] However, these were soon replaced by an overarching “National Gender Equality Strategy and Action Plan” for 2014-2019.[49] Most notably Slovakia has reduced the gender pay gap with this strategy and introduced strategies to support working women such as childcare.[50] Slovakia does not currently have a specific law on gender equality despite adopting a strategy to improve equal opportunities in work for men and women from 2021-2027 however this does not satisfy the EU’s directive for gender quotas on corporate boards,[51] they do try to fight gender stereotypes which can be considered to be a barrier to women achieving high-status roles like the ones discussed in this paper such as board members or non-executives, roles with important economic decision-making capabilities. The earliest available data from the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) begins in 2012 for Slovakia. Slovakia stays quite close to the EU28 average of female non-executives. For example, from 2012 to 2018 the percentage of female non-executives stays within at least 3% of the EU28 with exceptions of approximately 10% in 2015 and 2016, from 2018 to 2022 female Slovakian non-executives does not fall below 25% and the most recent figure for 2022 is 30.2% while the EU28 average is 35.1% and the EU27 average is 34.1%. This discrepancy could be attributed to the early introduction of national strategies and the reduction of the gender pay gap from 26.7% to 17.8% in the 2005-2015 period.[52] As well as welfare to help employed women, improving childcare and offering flexible work options.[53] The rate of Czech female board members and non-executives is likely to increase after the 2030 National strategy.[54] Given a lack of similar commitments in Hungary, it is unreasonable to expect or even predict a significant increase in female representation as board members or non-executives.
5 Soft Quotas
Some countries have taken the corporate governance route with ‘soft’ quotas sometimes called ‘comply or explain.’ This means that companies must meet a target set by the government or provide an explanation if they have not complied with the target.[55] ‘Soft’ quotas can also be seen as an incentive structure.[56] Countries that have taken this route to gender-equal boards are Spain, the United Kingdom (UK) and Sweden.[57]
5.1 Variations of targets
Spain implemented a soft quota applying to all listed companies with 250 or more employees aiming for 40% by 2015, adopting the law in 2007.[58] The law does not have any sanctions to have a board gender quota while accommodating business and political interest groups.[59] The law proposed incentives for companies that met the target quota percentage, the Spanish government did not reward any compliant companies despite offering an incentive, showing weak commitment to the legislation.[60] The UK and Sweden have implemented voluntary measures by reforming corporate-governance measures with ‘comply or explain’ measures.[61] Since 2014, the UK recommends specific targets on the gender make-up of the board depending on its size,[62] to reach 33% women on UK boards by 2020 on FTSE 100 companies and 33% women on executive board committees.[63] This was intended to remove barriers and potential bias from women being hired on boards. This was after Lord Davies’ successful, voluntary recommendations lead to a doubling of women on boards from 2011 to 26.1% in 2015 surpassing the 25% target.[64] In 2016, Sweden told its companies to “strive for gender balance on boards” in other words 50%.[65]
5.2 Results
In 2015 the UK had 26.1% female board members reaching 34.6% in 2020 with a peak of 39% in 2022.[66] In 2016 Sweden had 36.1% female board members which have stayed fairly consistent between 35% and 38%.[67] In 2007, Spain had 6.2% of female board members and in 2015 had 18.7%, failing to meet the 33% target and has still not met the 40% target.[68]
‘Soft’ quota countries have similar levels of female board members when compared to ‘hard’ quota countries like Belgium, Italy and Norway.[69] In addition, while we can see that the voluntary approach has success it also has various flaws. The UK voluntary quota seems to have been most effective, setting small yet ambitious targets four to five years at a time. In addition, by not introducing sanctions, businesses did not feel as hesitant or resistant to reach the target and did not try to avoid it as some Norwegian companies did.[70] Also suggesting women should hold 33% of the positions on board committees may have helped other women become board members and surpass the 33% with almost 40%.[71] Spain and Sweden saw increases in female board members, but both failed to meet their respective targets. The increases seen may have been due to stable and generous welfare systems.[72] By not rewarding Spanish companies for meeting the target and not including punishments in the quota, companies were disincentivised to meet the target feeling cheated by their government for not living up to a promise.[73] Sweden’s vague corporate governance code alone was not sufficient to meet the target,[74] however, they still saw relatively high levels of female board members, 5.2% above the EU28 average which could be explained by their generous welfare system and the stable job market.[75]
6 Conclusion
In this paper, we have looked at various countries in Europe that have implemented different variations of gender quotas. This paper chose these countries because of all of their similarities. For example, the type of company and amount of companies targeted by the legislation, each with similar targets.
This paper found that the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ quotas had comparable levels of female representation as board members with women slightly more represented in countries with ‘hard’ quotas. However, ‘soft’ quotas led to more representation in positions other than the ones specified in the quotas. This illustrates the flaw of ‘hard’ quotas failing to increase female representation beyond the quota from general manager roles to CEOs and CFOs. Countries that had no quotas had a much lower level of female representation on PLC boards and lower than the EU average. These results suggest that ‘hard’ quotas are more effective at increasing female representation on corporate boards than no quotas. However, countries may not need to resort to measures such as mandatory quotas given that ‘soft’ quotas generate similar levels of representation aided by a strong welfare system and or the quota aligns with the interests of business and political groups.
Overall, these results indicate that by not introducing hard quotas, female representation on boards fails to reach the targeted levels of 40% set out by countries like Norway. The use of sanctions has a neutral impact. It deters firms from non-compliance but may lead to firms avoiding the legislation.[76] Some zero quota countries increase women’s options to work as well as have a family, diminishing female stereotypes, which increased their representation in these key roles. Although Slovakia improved female non-executives from 12.5% to 30.2% in six years,[77] and board members from 8.4% to 28.9% in 18 years,[78] it may require a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ quota to surpass this threshold. The best strategy may be to have gender quotas combined with welfare strategies like improving childcare.[79]
Appendix A
Percentage of male (green) and female (yellow) board members in EU28 and EU27 average, Belgium, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, Norway and UK in 2003[80]
Appendix B
Percentage of male (green) and female (yellow) board members in EU28 and EU27 average, Belgium, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, Norway and UK in 2014[81]
Appendix C
Percentage of male (green) and female (yellow) board members in EU28 and EU27 average, Belgium, Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, Norway and UK in 2022[82]
Armstrong, Jo, and Sylvia Walby. ‘Gender Quotas in Management Boards’. EPRS: European Parliamentary Research Service, 2012, 38.
Arndt, Paula, and Katharina Wrohlich. ‘Gender Quotas in a European Comparison: Tough Sanctions Most Effective’. DIW Weekly Report 9, no. 38 (2019): 337–44. https://doi.org/10.18723/diw_dwr:2019-38-1.
Campbell, Kevin, and Leszek Bohdanowicz. ‘Regulation of the Gender Composition of Company Boards in Europe: Experience and Prospects’. In Women on Corporate Boards. Routledge, 2018.
Karlsson, Charlie, and Philippe Rouchy. ‘Innovation, Regions and Employment Resilience in Sweden’. In Resilience and Regional Dynamics: An International Approach to a New Research Agenda, edited by Hugo Pinto, Teresa Noronha, and Eric Vaz, 81–103. Advances in Spatial Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95135-5_5.
Kirsch, Anja. ‘The Gender Composition of Corporate Boards: A Review and Research Agenda’. The Leadership Quarterly 29, no. 2 (1 April 2018): 346–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.06.001.
———. ‘Women on Boards: Policies in Member States and the Effects on Corporate Governance’. European Parliament, December 2021.
Machold, Silke, Morten Huse, Katrin Hansen, and Marina Brogi, eds. Getting Women on to Corporate Boards: A Snowball Starting in Norway. Getting Women on to Corporate Boards. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013. https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781782547921/9781782547921.xml.
Marisetty, Vijaya Bhaskar, and Salu Prasad. ‘On the Side Effects of Mandatory Gender Diversity Laws in Corporate Boards’. Pacific-Basin Finance Journal 73 (1 June 2022): 101741. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pacfin.2022.101741.
Mateos de Cabo, Ruth, Siri Terjesen, Lorenzo Escot, and Ricardo Gimeno. ‘Do “Soft Law” Board Gender Quotas Work? Evidence from a Natural Experiment’. European Management Journal 37, no. 5 (1 October 2019): 611–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2019.01.004.
Mensi-Klarbach, Heike. ‘Gender Quotas on Corporate Boards: Similarities and Differences in Quota Scenarios.’ European Management Review 17, no. 3 (2020): 615–31.
Piscopo, J.M., and S. Clark Muntean. ‘Corporate Quotas and Symbolic Politics in Advanced Democracies’. Journal of Women, Politics and Policy 39, no. 3 (2018): 285–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/1554477X.2018.1477396.
Seierstad, Cathrine, Geraldine Healy, Eskil Sønju Le Bruyn Goldeng, and Hilde Fjellvær. ‘A “Quota Silo” or Positive Equality Reach? The Equality Impact of Gender Quotas on Corporate Boards in Norway’. Human Resource Management Journal 31, no. 1 (2021): 165–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12288.
Strøm, R. Øystein. ‘The Norwegian Gender Balance Law: A Reform That Failed?’ Annals of Corporate Governance 4, no. 1 (23 May 2019): 1-86 (3-9). https://doi.org/10.1561/109.00000014.
[4] Anja Kirsch, ‘The Gender Composition of Corporate Boards: A Review and Research Agenda’, The Leadership Quarterly 29, no. 2 (1 April 2018): 346–64, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.06.001.
[5] ‘Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on Improving the Gender Balance among Non-Executive Directors of Companies Listed on Stock Exchanges and Related Measures’ (2012), https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52012PC0614; Huet, ‘EU Sets Mandatory 40% Quota for Women on Company Boards’; Silke Machold et al., eds., Getting Women on to Corporate Boards: A Snowball Starting in Norway, Getting Women on to Corporate Boards (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013), https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781782547921/9781782547921.xml.
[7] Jo Armstrong and Sylvia Walby, ‘Gender Quotas in Management Boards’, EPRS: European Parliamentary Research Service, 2012, 38; J.M. Piscopo and S. Clark Muntean, ‘Corporate Quotas and Symbolic Politics in Advanced Democracies’, Journal of Women, Politics and Policy 39, no. 3 (2018): 285–309, https://doi.org/10.1080/1554477X.2018.1477396.
[8] R. Øystein Strøm, ‘The Norwegian Gender Balance Law: A Reform That Failed?’, Annals of Corporate Governance 4, no. 1 (23 May 2019): 1-86 (3-9), https://doi.org/10.1561/109.00000014.
[9] Ruth Mateos de Cabo et al., ‘Do “Soft Law” Board Gender Quotas Work? Evidence from a Natural Experiment’, European Management Journal 37, no. 5 (1 October 2019): 611–24, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2019.01.004.
[17] Cathrine Seierstad et al., ‘A “Quota Silo” or Positive Equality Reach? The Equality Impact of Gender Quotas on Corporate Boards in Norway’, Human Resource Management Journal 31, no. 1 (2021): 165–86, https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12288; Teigen, ‘The Making and Circulation of Corporate Quotas’.
[18] Kevin Campbell and Leszek Bohdanowicz, ‘Regulation of the Gender Composition of Company Boards in Europe: Experience and Prospects’, in Women on Corporate Boards (Routledge, 2018).
[29] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE); European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), ‘Indicator’.
[30] Teigen, ‘The Making and Circulation of Corporate Quotas’.
[31] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), ‘Indicator’.
[32] Kirsch, ‘Women on Boards: Policies in Member States and the Effects on Corporate Governance’.
[33] Teigen, ‘The Making and Circulation of Corporate Quotas’.
[34] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), ‘Indicator’.
[35] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE); Teigen, ‘The Making and Circulation of Corporate Quotas’; Kirsch, ‘Women on Boards: Policies in Member States and the Effects on Corporate Governance’.
[36] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), ‘Indicator’.
[37] Paula Arndt and Katharina Wrohlich, ‘Gender Quotas in a European Comparison: Tough Sanctions Most Effective’, DIW Weekly Report 9, no. 38 (2019): 337–44, https://doi.org/10.18723/diw_dwr:2019-38-1; Allen and Overy, ‘Gender Diversity on Corporate Boards’.
[50] Allen and Overy, ‘Gender Diversity on Corporate Boards’.
[51] Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on improving the gender balance among non-executive directors of companies listed on stock exchanges and related measures.
[52] Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family of the Slovak Republic, ‘National Strategy For Gender Equality in the Slovak Republic’.
[53] Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family of the Slovak Republic.
[54] Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, Government Offices of Sweden, and Ministère chargé de l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes, de la diversité et de l’égalité des chances, ‘Trio Presidency Declaration on Gender Equality: France the Czech Republic and Sweden 2022-2023’.
[55] Kirsch, ‘Women on Boards: Policies in Member States and the Effects on Corporate Governance’.
[56] Mateos de Cabo et al., ‘Do “Soft Law” Board Gender Quotas Work?’
[57] Kirsch, ‘Women on Boards: Policies in Member States and the Effects on Corporate Governance’.
[58] Teigen, ‘The Making and Circulation of Corporate Quotas’.
[59] Mateos de Cabo et al., ‘Do “Soft Law” Board Gender Quotas Work?’
[61] Teigen, ‘The Making and Circulation of Corporate Quotas’; Campbell and Bohdanowicz, ‘Regulation of the Gender Composition of Company Boards in Europe’.
[62] Teigen, ‘The Making and Circulation of Corporate Quotas’.
[63] Campbell and Bohdanowicz, ‘Regulation of the Gender Composition of Company Boards in Europe’.
[65] Mateos de Cabo et al., ‘Do “Soft Law” Board Gender Quotas Work?’; Campbell and Bohdanowicz, ‘Regulation of the Gender Composition of Company Boards in Europe’; Vijaya Bhaskar Marisetty and Salu Prasad, ‘On the Side Effects of Mandatory Gender Diversity Laws in Corporate Boards’, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal 73 (1 June 2022): 101741, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pacfin.2022.101741.
[66] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), ‘Indicator’.
[67] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE).
[68] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE).
[69] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE).
[70] Campbell and Bohdanowicz, ‘Regulation of the Gender Composition of Company Boards in Europe’.
[71] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), ‘Indicator’.
[72] Teigen, ‘The Making and Circulation of Corporate Quotas’.
[73] Mateos de Cabo et al., ‘Do “Soft Law” Board Gender Quotas Work?’
[74] Campbell and Bohdanowicz, ‘Regulation of the Gender Composition of Company Boards in Europe’.
[75] Campbell and Bohdanowicz; Teigen, ‘The Making and Circulation of Corporate Quotas’; European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), ‘Indicator’; Charlie Karlsson and Philippe Rouchy, ‘Innovation, Regions and Employment Resilience in Sweden’, in Resilience and Regional Dynamics: An International Approach to a New Research Agenda, ed. Hugo Pinto, Teresa Noronha, and Eric Vaz, Advances in Spatial Science (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018), 81–103, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95135-5_5.
[76] Teigen, ‘Gender Quotas for Corporate Boards in Norway’; Strøm, ‘The Norwegian Gender Balance Law’.
[77] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), ‘Indicator’.
[78] European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), ‘Indicator’.
“Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.”
George Washington
1 Idea
Schulz’s Razor.:
“Do not attribute to group conspiracy, that which can be explained by cancellation anxiety.” From the outside, it might look like everyone is coordinating to push some ideology or movement.
h/t Chris Williamson
1 Poem
Say not the Struggle nought Availeth
Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
Arthur Hugh Clough
1 Picture
The FInding of Moses
1 Essay
A Conversation About “Intellectual Teachers” with Ben Riley
Ben: See, I knew you were the right teacher to ask about this. And I think you’ve made an important distinction among two types of “teaching intellectualism,” which pose related but somewhat distinct challenges.
The question of “how should I, a teacher, teach Johnny, this particular student” strikes me as essentially an engineering question. I’ve discovered the hard way that teachers hate the metaphor of “learning engineering,” yet it strikes me as apt — when teachers design a lesson or task for their students, they are trying to get them (the students) to think about something they otherwise might not be inclined to think about. Students are puzzles, and while they can never be fully solved, I think there are ways in which we can help teachers get better at “engineering” experiences that will help Johnny and his classmates learn.
You are right that we rarely give teachers formal ideas about what students are like, but this is where cognitive science can be helpful, right? We could make sure that teachers have at least a basic understanding of how our minds work, and then use that as the foundation for exploring questions about what to do with that knowledge in a teaching context. While we can’t just snap our fingers to make that happen, I at least see a roadmap to get there, and indeed, that’s the work we do at the organization I founded.
Which brings me to your second aspect of teaching as an intellectual craft. What I hear you saying is there’s a big gap right now between the largely theoretical knowledge produced by university professors and such, and the sorts of questions that might only be visible to people who actually spend most of their days with children. Unfortunately, as you hint at, there is no obvious path to make that more valued. I feel like periodically the idea of “teacher-researcher” floats around but never goes very far. The incentives just don’t exist. We could mount a policy push to create them, but that seems like a hard slog.
I recently went to watch the new Barbie movie. It was fun and different, new and interesting.
It has also gained lots of criticism from feminists (of a wide variety) who generally like its message and a broad coalition of non-feminists and some feminists who don’t like its message, some who enjoy it for its entertainment purposes and some who see some value in the ideas it brings to the table.
Obviously a big message discussed in this movie is the dynamics between men and women, in daily public and private as well as corporate life and semi-casual semi professional environments like schools. Overall I would say that it has a feminist message, of which variety I could not say as am I not sufficiently well versed on feminist scholarship.
However I argue that while the superficial level of the film wears a feminist coat, beneath the surface it is trying to discuss and show another much more important issue. That issue is how humans negotiate social situations and interact with each other in general. It is the fundamental issue of interpersonal and co-existing tribal negotiations for the best outcomes for all parties simultaneously.
While the film shows both extremes of some sides winning much more than others it never lands on an acceptable resolution nor a realistic one. As much as it would like to show that Barbieland is better than the real world because it is an ideal escape it spectacularly fails. It stills pretends to think this (can films think?) even though (stereotypical) Barbie chooses [SPOILER] the real world in the end.
In fact Barbieland is supposed to represent the opposite of the real world despite being eternally intertwined with it and occasionally affected by actions taken in the real world, just not consistently. While Barbie and Ken’s first adventure into the real world is rather jarring for Barbie and the audience for a number of reasons, it still fails to represent the opposite of Barbieland. It more accurately represents an anti representation, not an opposite just with aspects that the Barbies would prefer to ignore and find distasteful.
In ‘reality’ Barbie doesn’t dislike the real world as much as one might think given that she is stereotypical Barbie and the real world is meant to be the opposite of Barbieland. This is not to say that she didn’t have a unpleasant and unfair experience in the real world. I am merely pointing out that Barbie had a much stronger and more visceral reaction against Kendom or Kenland or Ken’s kenship with the Kens.
Ken is deeply infatuated with Barbie but also with attention. We discover that he would much rather have a more intimate relationship with Barbie than be Supreme Leader of an entire universe. So much for power corrupting. Ken is influenced, although not purely by the real world. What I mean by that is that he superficially looks at the real world and intuits what it says about… well everything without digging deeper. Most people, or media scholars have the idea that marketing reflects society back at us or at least and idealised version or one that we want or its says something about that society’s collective unconscious. At least adverts that have any basic level of notoriety. Ken takes(steals) three books from a library but never actually reads them. Instead he builds his church on a few beer and cowboy hat commercials and loitering around the lobby of a large corporation.
Ken even later admits that he lost interest in his so-called vision of patriarchy when he discovered that it had a lot less to do with horses. Ken clearly imagined some sort of Avatar cowboy paradise given that he called horses “human extenders”. Ken quickly overhauls social dynamics in Barbieland with his new vision of what men can and could be with about 5 90’s based stereotypes and he aims to rewrite the constitution of Barbieland.
Nobody in the film actually expresses genuine desire to dominate anyone except the caricature of the CEO but it would be more accurately described as playing status games than genuine domination. Not even the Barbies genuinely wish to dominate instead preferring to maintain status quo by protecting their constitution. In the end they make some concession to Ken. Only after they realised why they started acting so strangely.
If anything this film should inspire us to open up and expand the dialogic process with others. With our friends, families and partners as well as colleagues. To the audience it was no surprise what Ken desired but unlike the real world Barbie failed to recognise it. Ken also failed to fully express it. Perhaps because he didn’t want to be vulnerable and open himself up to rejection because if stereotypical Barbie rejects you then no other Barbie will accept you. Eventually Ken opens up a dialogue with Barbie and despite still being rejected becomes better for it and allows others in the film to open up dialogues.
The film is full of bland and superficial stereotypes but people don’t become interesting or achieve their goals or desires until they try to see past the stereotypes and acknowledge the other person as an individual with wants and desires of their own. [The film] Barbie encourages us to see past stereotypes and to see individuals and see those individuals and members of the same human race with their own individual situation and psychology but who is still affected by stereotypes, environment, history and other relationships. The only way to navigate all of these turbulent waters is to open a dialogue and begin negotiation with the person themselves. This fails and at least one if not both parties will fail to satisfy their desires and reach their goals if they allow their behaviour to be influenced by clumsy gender stereotypes, societal roles i.e. CEO, mother, daughter, teacher, stranger or feminists theory. (I would include the male version but as I am unaware of this type of scholarship and its name I am excluding it for this lengthy note).
How should humans organise themselves and achieve their aims? Barbie doesn’t have the answer but it shows us how not to do it and that a good starting point is the dialogic process (between individuals?)
The charter cities institute defines charter cities as:
A new city granted a special jurisdiction to create a new governance system.
Charter cities can help improve governance in a limited geographic area by giving local officials authority to implement best administrative practices as well as commercial regulations. By improving governance and institutions, charter cities can create a more competitive business environment that attracts investment, creates more jobs, and improves the lives of millions. They are one of the best public policy tools to ensure rapid urbanization jumpstarts long-term economic growth, rather than poverty, in emerging economies.
Alex Tabarrok shared this idea by Maxwell Tabarrok, as a win-win, have a charter city and a place to host the Olympics.
An interesting idea from Max. It’s getting harder to find a city to host the Olympics , a Charter Olympic City might be just the ticket to get a Charter City off the ground and share costs.
A public-private partnership model for building the Olympic village would alleviate some of the budgetary pressure on governments and provide a launchpad for stakeholders to get their special jurisdiction off the ground. The current funding model for Olympic projects is that governments foot the entire upfront bill and pay for private contractors to build the stadiums and a mini-city. In exchange, they don’t share the revenue from the games themselves or the developed area after the games with anyone (except the IOC).
…An Olympic charter city provides an alternative funding model that has the potential to be more profitable for cities and private developers. As in the development of a charter city, a portion of the upfront cost of construction would be paid for by a private developer, rather than entirely from the local government. This cost sharing is mirrored after the games where the local government and a private charter city developer share political autonomy, tax revenues, and the cost of providing public services for the Olympic charter city.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
1 Picture
1 Essay
The Ketchup Conundrum By Malcolm Gladwell
The world’s leading expert on ketchup’s early years is Andrew F. Smith, a substantial man, well over six feet, with a graying mustache and short wavy black hair. Smith is a scholar, trained as a political scientist, intent on bringing rigor to the world of food. When we met for lunch not long ago at the restaurant Savoy in SoHo (chosen because of the excellence of its hamburger and French fries, and because Savoy makes its own ketchup—a dark, peppery, and viscous variety served in a white porcelain saucer), Smith was in the throes of examining the origins of the croissant for the upcoming “Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America,” of which he is the editor-in-chief. Was the croissant invented in 1683, by the Viennese, in celebration of their defeat of the invading Turks? Or in 1686, by the residents of Budapest, to celebrate their defeat of the Turks? Both explanations would explain its distinctive crescent shape—since it would make a certain cultural sense (particularly for the Viennese) to consecrate their battlefield triumphs in the form of pastry. But the only reference Smith could find to either story was in the Larousse Gastronomique of 1938. “It just doesn’t check out,” he said, shaking his head wearily.
Smith’s specialty is the tomato, however, and over the course of many scholarly articles and books—“The History of Home-Made Anglo-American Tomato Ketchup,” for Petits Propos Culinaires, for example, and “The Great Tomato Pill War of the 1830’s,” for _The Connecticut Historical Society Bulletin—_Smith has argued that some critical portion of the history of culinary civilization could be told through this fruit. Cortez brought tomatoes to Europe from the New World, and they inexorably insinuated themselves into the world’s cuisines. The Italians substituted the tomato for eggplant. In northern India, it went into curries and chutneys. “The biggest tomato producer in the world today?” Smith paused, for dramatic effect. “China. You don’t think of tomato being a part of Chinese cuisine, and it wasn’t ten years ago. But it is now.”