Policies like that are based on results of psychological research such as "stereotype threat", which has recently fallen victim to the reproducibility crisis.
In other words, the entire social engineering structure of such laws may be a house built on sand.
If it's NOT harm, then it should be legal for job boards to only show positions to the desired gender, right?
Scope matters. On the level of the entire economy? Possibly yes, but you haven't shown that the entire economy will discriminate against X or Y; respective preferences of individual players may well balance out.
On the level of a single Acme, Inc.? What if that particular organization is unofficially hostile to a particular gender? I would say that in such case, it is more harmful to join it blindly and then suffer from the generally unfriendly environment than to steer clear of them in time.
I wouldn't personally like to become an employee in a corporation that prefers not to employ men and is only forced to do so by external powers. And I would prefer them to be honest and advertise that openly, to save my time and theirs from making an unhappy match.
This also only ever goes in one direction. A friend of mine works for a company run by and employs 100% women.
In any other context, it would be illegal. Instead, it's considered 'diverse' and 'empowering'.
Based on statistics alone, it's obvious the company is hiring women based on choice.
Tech companies, like Duo, touted the fact that they had all women development teams a few years back. When discrimination like this is an accepted practice, I stop listening.
The challenge is to compel belief that unequal gender distribution across professions creates a systemic harm.
At least according to “Is It Discriminatory to Advertise Job Opportunities on Facebook?”, https://www.thatcherlaw.com/blog/2022/12/is-it-discriminator...
But it was posted, and apparently that's what matters. So the ads that signpost you to the posting that only [people with special glasses] can see are just peachy.