And to take that point one stage further ...
Bias isn't just possible, it's probable. Everyone does it, consciously or not. And not all bias equates to unlawful discimination either, it can be as simple as preferring a candidate with gardening as a hobby as opposed to, say, playing a musical instrument.
But because bias can result in perpetuating imbalances in the workplace; recruitment, reorganising, training, promotion etc have to be looked at carefully. So for example someone should be looking at job descriptions/person specs ( at whatever stage) and saying "hang on, you don't need a degree for this" "you don't need 3 years work experience to do that, a school leaver could do it" "you don't stop being able to do that job at 65" "you don't need written and spoken English for that" and so on. There's a whole raft of checks and measures that should be in place to try and address structural inequalities.
Not box ticking. Not gathering (intrusive) data by way of EO monitoring forms then filing the forms in a dusty corner. Not quotas instead of (as unbiased as possible) merit.
None of it happens overnight and working towards a situation where you don't have to spend bloody hours arguing why women are just as capable as men of taking an inside leg measurement has taken decades to achieve. So LP swanning up and tritely advocating quota systems which are already proven to fail, just shows the depth of her lack of understanding. And it's pretty bloody galling to say the least.
