if the state is convinced that it is worthwhile to increase diversity amongst scientists, what it needs to do is address the issue at an earlier career stage.

scientists care about one thing: science. if you have a good idea, you have a good idea; if you have good research, you have good research. they don't care about anything else.

so, this idea that people are being denied funds because of their ethnicity is spurious, as it is in contradiction to the purposes of scientific inquiry. you will not find any data that upholds this speculation. physicists are not going to reject a good paper because the person is black, or female or subscribes to some kind of superstition (although they may lament the latter). it's a ridiculous idea, and those that promote it are ridiculous people.

on the other hand, what is worrying about the idea of the state enforcing gender quotas is that it presents the possibility that good research will not get funded because somebody is not the right gender or ethnic type. it is the quota system that has the greater potential of enforcing harmful discrimination. those who push back against this are unfamiliar with the culture within scientific communities, and are instead projecting an ideal that they read in a philosophy course - an ideal that does not hold up to any sort of empirical scrutiny and should be forcefully discarded as pseudo-science.

i mean, it will be the ultimate irony if we end up mutilating our research departments due to the pronouncements of foucauldian pseudo-science.

i think the empirical evidence on the topic is pretty clear: girls don't have the same levels of interest in science that boys do. is that actually a problem? well, i don't think that feminism is supposed to be about forcing girls to be boys. what feminism is supposed to be about is breaking down barriers to opportunity. if, in the end, girls make different choices, so be it. you could disagree with this if you want, i guess. personally, i'd argue that a proportional outcome - which is what we have - is a measure of success. but, to argue that the solution to increasing female involvement in the sciences is enforcing quotas is unquestionably wrong. if you think this is a problem, and you think it should be addressed, then it's the culture that needs to be addressed: the system needs to find a way to fight back against all of the corporate and religious messaging that exists and convince girls that they want to be scientists.

they'd have better luck if they were to create a csi or xfiles like show on the cbc. if you think this needs addressing, that's the level it needs to be addressed on.