Should companies (businesses) ensure that they employ a quota (or fixed percentage) of women in all jobs, or is this an impractical concept?

Workplace quotas have been suggested for sometime now, in an attempt to encourage genderequality in the workforce. Theidea provokes strong arguments, which I will consider here. On the one hand, it can besaid that quotas would allow women to enter traditionally male professions, ranging from surgeon to airline pilot. This, it is argued, would expand the pool of people available to do thesejobs, and reduceinequality between thesexes. Furthermore, supporters of quotas claim that the procedure would encourage women into the workforce generally, thus increasing family incomes and improving thestandard of living of many people and families. The other side of this debateis that gender quotas may simply be unenforceablein practical terms. This is becausethe number of women who wish to be(for instance) airline pilots or surgeons appears to be substantially lower than the number of men. This being the case, it would appear to beimpossibleto enforce a quota in many areas. A second point is that a quota should logically work for both genders, and thus men would haveto beemployed in traditionally femaleroles such as primary teaching or nursing. Again, we would find ourselves asking men to take on jobs which they are not inclined to do. A final point is that thereduction of inequality should start at an early age, with equality of qualifications, career and life choices, rather than being enforced retrospectively by employers or thestate. To conclude, it appears that the aim of these quotas is admirable, but they are unworkablein realistic terms dueto the differing wishes of theexisting workforce. A longer-term and morethoughtful programmeis surely needed.