Manager by Law: An Analytical Discourse Evaluation of the German Woman Quota

Abstract

Two bills for the implementation of a legal women quota demand that all German market-listed companies should be required by law to have at least 40% women on their supervisory boards by 2020. In the German political discourse, the bills ground their justification in what I will articulate as the equality of opportunity argument, which primarily refers to the government’s duty according to German constitutional law to promote the effective implementation of equal rights for women and men and take steps to eliminate disadvantages that now exist. As the Analytical Discourse Evaluation will show, the contested argument hinges on an interpretation of the implied conception of equality of opportunity and can only cogently argue for a redistribution of management positions when assuming that structural disadvantages in employment for women originate from their cultural coercion to raise families.