I wouldn't assume that people ascend in an organization entirely because of merit. Have you seen this research, for example. It would be nice to think that merit is the only factor, but even to prove one's merit there are many steps along the way that might leave very capable people in the dust. Legislation to change things at the top -- company boards -- might eventually profoundly change things at the bottom (education), or it might not. Perhaps there will be insufficient women capable of holding 30% of board seats. Maybe they prefer to occupy 80% of the lowest level jobs in these companies. Germany is actually a little behind in Europe: Other countries, including France, Spain and the Netherlands, have followed with similar requirements.
In Sweden, the new government wants to introduce quotas to bring more women onto company boards if businesses don't act themselves during the next two years. Can they all be wrong? What's interesting is that this legislation was backed by a three-party coalition. 60% of the members of parliament are men. Can they all be wrong? Can they all be feminists? Defining the problem and the solution is not simple. Here's an interesting article from the NYT a year ago looking at the successes and failures of it legislating women onto company boards.Once again, feminists prove that they don't give a damn about equality
In 2003, Norway became the first country in the world to impose a gender quota requiring at least 40 percent of public limited company board members to be women.