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Misguided European Law #43,672

Norway had a problem: while studies had shown that women make good directors, less than seven percent of Norwegian board seats were filled by women. So what did they do? In 2002, they made a law that required publicly traded and state-owned companies to fill at least forty percent of their boards with women by 2008. Today, women make up about forty-four percent of Norway's boards. Now, Spain and the Netherlands have passed similar laws, and France, Belgium, Britain, Germany, and Sweden are thinking about it.

What this means is that instead of earning a place in the top echelon, women will be there for the simple fact that they were born with two X chromosomes. A man in the company will be able to legitimately say, "She got promoted just because she's a woman." Quotas move people into jobs they are not capable of while passing up workers who are. In this way, quotas hurt the entire company's productivity. As the New York Times reports about Norway's businesses after this law came into effect, "In fact, early evidence from a little-noticed study by the University of Michigan suggests that the immediate effect has been negative."

Quotas also create mistrust and resentment. Why should a man work hard in Norway, when he knows a woman will probably be promoted before him anyway by virtue of her breasts? Why should a woman work hard in Norway, when she knows she'll be promoted no matter what?

Don't get me wrong—I have no problem with female directors and CEOs. I only want female directors and CEOs to be the best people for the job, not just the best women for the job.

Big Words

During my mission, I stopped using big words most of the time because no one uses them outside of academia, but of late I have reintroduced them into my vocabulary. The transition has not been without blunder. For example, on Tuesday when I told a group of Canadian boy scouts (who were the age of American cub scouts) that the celestial room is analogous to the celestial kingdom just as the instruction rooms are analogous to our life on earth. Oops. However, since I have access to the OED through my university, I have been committing to memory words to use in everyday speech. For example, in class we played a game in which we spoke about a werewolf, so I got to use the words lycanthropy and lupine. I was pleased that I knew a great enough variety of words to say that. Some words, however, like peregrinate and querulous, no one but me will ever understand.

People read my blog!

Seriously, I'm going to be swaggering around all day thinking about how I have readers.

Sex.

It's why I want to get married. I used to make fun of people (especially returned elder missionaries) who wanted to get married as fast as possible so they could have sex. Now I think the real tragedy is when people get married just to have a buddy because they are emotionally incapable of doing things by themselves. They go from sibling to mission companion to girlfriend to wife in quick succession because independence (aka loneliness) terrifies them. For girls, it could be parents to boyfriend to husband. (Most sister missionaries I know are pretty independent.) For these people, it doesn't matter who they marry, they just want to get married.
As I sit around at this very young age and contemplate, however, my possible old-maidenhood, I realize that I want very much to have sex someday. It would really suck to never get to do it.
Yes, this is new. Yes, I'm a late bloomer.

I love this song.

In school, french fries are vegetables.

The problem:

As with many social problems, the roots are institutional: