While the BILD readers wonder, whether “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” should introduce a quota for women, the rest of Germany recently discusses the same issue on another level:
Do we need a quota to ensure that women can reach top management positions? 
Being a woman, studying economics this topic directly affects my future so I started to gather information and became surprised, how callused the fronts are!
Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen wants a legally enforceable quota, whereas Family Minister Kristina Schröder even ties her office to “no” concerning the quota.
She rather proposes a voluntary quota.
Yet, while our politicians argue, let’s form our own opinion!
Why have people even come up with the idea of a quota?
As a matter of fact women earn less than their male colleagues and achieve leading positions more rarely.
Advocates of the quota argue that there are plenty of adequately skilled women, thus a quota would establish equality of opportunity and equal rights. However, at the moment men rather support men, what leads to a vicious cycle, women cannot break through.
They are inhibited by the glass ceiling effect.
Christine Lüders, German mandatory for anti-discrimination complains that men do have better networks. “Women are considered perpetrators”, she objects. There are many career programs or elite clubs, only men have access to. Here, informal mentoring and recruiting takes place. And this behavior, that can almost been seen as nepotism, continues although statistics have proven that organizations with a mixed top management perform a better job.
However, many people see this differently:
Their main point is that a quota for women would discriminate against men.
Furthermore it limits the corporate freedom.
Opponents warn that a quota would not establish equality of opportunities but the exact opposite:
By imposing the quota, the applicant’s gender will become the criteria for job offers although it should be achievements and qualifications. Women will be labeled as “token women”.
When asking the German people, 61 percent would like to see companies voluntarily introduce a 30-percent-quota for women in management positions, while 24 percent of Germans want that quota to be written into law. An interesting fact might be that only 17 percent of men shared the latter view.
I, personally, still believe in acknowledgment of qualifications and therefore do not see the necessity of a legally enforceable quota. However, a voluntary quota I would assess desirable. Maybe the future will tell me a lesson.
But until then I think it is up to the organizations, whether they want to be overrun by government regulations or if they want to take own measures. After all, they should be aware of the fact that diversity management is the key to success!
berlinlcalling 
Hey Stefochka! Once again you achieved to write a great article about a really interesting topic.
I like how you start by alluding to your previous post and by adding some personal relation. Then you focus on both positive and negative aspects of a quota which leads to your final personal opinion.
All in all: good structure and striking pictures. Especially positive is that you already used the new format (which only displays the beginning of the article on the home page) and added a video to your content.
In my mind the idea behind the quota is really good. Although some people fear that this leads to hiring unskilled women only in order to fulfill the quota. But that cannot be true. Corporations still need to be profitable and withstand competition. As you said, there are a lot of qualified women out there. Of course, the first women employed in the first years of the quota may have to struggle with prejudices. But once they made it, the following generations will have it much easier as women in the higher departments become normal.
Thanks for posting!
It is an endlessly discussed topic and above all one of those people seem to never be able to agree on.
Therefore, I like the way you constructed your article. Talking about the disagreement of our two top leading political ladies and their inability to get to an agreement, illustrates the situation very well.
Also your way of continuing, telling readers “Okay, let’s leave the politicians aside, they never manage to agree, let’s just make up our own opinion” is nice.
After that you list different point of views and arguments how the circumstances arounf this topic can be seen.
You bring in your own view as a woman AND as a business person telling readers that economically seen, the key to success might be diversity management. Nicely done!
Hi Stefochka!
You have chosen a great topic to discus about! It reminded me a lot at our Human Resource Management class we took last semester! It’s great how you apply our knowledge to your post! In my opinion, you have a great argumentation and becomes very clear that you do not really support the quota (so far;-) ). The video also gives a good explanation why women may feel offended being the “quota woman”. That makes sense to me. However, I think it is a controversial topic because reality has taught us that it is really hard for women to be in a leading position. So far, I find it difficult to decide on my own opinion. There are a lot of negative and positive sides, as you’ve already mentioned in your post!
Thanks for having me reminded of this important topic!