I'm having a guess that companies decide they want to be 'diverse' and not all white guys and the easiest way to hit the number target is to hire some women. The quota approach seems a bit flawed - they should be mostly colour and sex blind, perhaps dropping the bar a little bit for disadvantaged groups.

Another funny thing is after going on about hiring more dark skinned people a lot of companies are hiring Indians just because they are good at the job (eg Nadella) so they're having to say no not that sort of coloured person, the other lot.