In Hawaiian politics nothing happens without men. There are, for example, Governor Josh Green, Senate President Ronald Kouchi or House Speaker Scott Saiki. In business, too, it is mostly men who are responsible for business booming. Only half of the 22 public companies in the state even have a woman on their board of directors. What for, the Hawaiian asks? It’s working. And it should continue, the Hawaiian legislature seems to have thought. According to a new law, from the end of 2023 there should be at least one man on the board of listed companies, and from the end of 2025 there should even be at least three. So the male quota is coming, at least in Hawaii. Good for companies: Everyone has already fulfilled this part of the new legal requirement.
Elsewhere, however, there is still a bit of work ahead of the companies. Because the law not only wants to ensure that male genius continues to ensure the preservation of the valuable Hawaiian stock exchange companies. It also wants to increase the proportion of women. The Hawaiian quota – it should apply to both sexes, actually to all. From the end of 2025, there must be not only three men or non-binary people, but also three women or non-binary people on the board of directors with a size of six people or more.
The Hawaiians are well aware that women would in principle already be able to run a country or a company. Although Hawaii’s only queen, Liliʻuokalani, was overthrown after just two years in power, the state’s largest company, Hawaiian Electric Industries, was run by a woman from 2006 to 2022. Constance “Connie” Lau was CEO for 16 years – basically the Angela Merkel of Hawaii. But just like in Germany, this one shining example in Hawaii has hardly led to major social improvements in equality.
Hawaii’s law is learning from California’s mistakes
The fact that the Hawaiian gender quota now also legally guarantees men board positions has constitutional reasons. Because in mid-2022, a California women’s quota was declared unconstitutional by a judge. The vague hope that Californian companies would benefit financially from a 30 percent women’s quota does not justify the actual interference with the protection of equality before the law, according to the responsible judge in her judgment. Hawaii legislators are learning from California’s mistakes.
The idea of introducing a quota for both sexes is not entirely new. In Norway, too, there has been a legal requirement since 2003 that at least 40 percent of the supervisory board members must be men and women. Today Norway is seen as one of the role models in gender equality policy.
And in Germany, too, there has already been an attempt to introduce a male quota. “Male applicants will be given priority if they have the same suitability, qualifications and professional performance,” said the Hamburg public prosecutor’s office in a surprising announcement in 2018. The country’s Equal Opportunities Act requires that the underrepresented gender be given preference in hiring. A gender is considered underrepresented at a share of 40 percent, in the authority the proportion of men had fallen to 36 percent.
At the time, German constitutional law experts were of the opinion that the Hamburg law could also be unconstitutional. Such an intervention can therefore only be justified if it occurs to compensate for structural disadvantages. Men in Germany are still a long way from being able to claim that. The proportion of women on the boards of the 160 companies in the Dax family was 15.5 percent. More than twice as many sit on the boards of US companies in the S&P 500.