Token feminism? What token feminism?

And it is not tokenism to seek to break some of the closed-shop rules which still govern appointments in big business - whoever they exclude by their inherited biases, women, different ethnicities, the disabled or whoever.

Affirmative action consists of four things which can achieve a better balance in the power structure, NOT tokenism.

First, making sure that the criteria for selection are genuinely based on what is actually needed for the position and not on the pre-conceived profile of those of the 49 per cent who are male, who went to the right school, joined the right club or supported the right sports team. The widespread international research evidence on innate and conditioned sex differences establishes that women can do and have done everything that men can - and one thing that men can’t.

Second, recognising a wider range of actual skills and experience, formal or otherwise. Women, who in addition to raising a family and providing their husband’s permanent infrastructure, have simultaneously provided crucial area or regional administrative support for voluntary organisations like the Red Cross, Salvos, Lifeline as volunteers, have as much or more management and interpersonal skills as a male who has managed a few staff and some boxes of goods in a branch of Coles or Woolworths.

Third, placing interpersonal skills, listening skills and accuracy in work - at which research shows that more women excel - higher up the scale of requirements.

And fourth, of course not appointing anyone who does not have the specified qualifications and experience - even if they did go to “the right school or college”.