{"id":21288,"date":"2021-07-22T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T16:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=21288"},"modified":"2021-07-14T09:31:34","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T16:31:34","slug":"lets-talk-2-0-equality-vs-equity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2021\/07\/22\/lets-talk-2-0-equality-vs-equity\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Talk 2.0<\/em>: Equality vs. equity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Equality is discussed heavily when talking about feminism, and that makes sense\u2014being a feminist is about striving for fairness between all genders and sexual orientations. But I feel like that equality itself is never truly elaborated on. What does equality look like in the real world? Is it even something we should be striving for?<\/p>\n

One definition of equality is \u201cthe state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities.\u201d So if we had a few people, all of different heights, standing behind a tall fence, we could give them all a small box to stand on. This would help with the problem of not being tall enough to see over the fence. But we\u2019re missing something here. Because these people are at different heights to begin with, the shortest people still might not be able to see over the fence.<\/p>\n

Equality is important, but it doesn\u2019t fix problems for everyone. In our \u201ccan\u2019t see over the fence\u201d example, giving everyone a box of the same size helps the tallest people and the tallest people only. It’s still fair, because we gave everyone the exact same advantage, but it’s useless to those who need it the most (in this example, the shortest people).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Let’s Talk 2.0<\/em> is a column exploring feminist issues (graphic by Celina Lessard\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is a very common example, but it’s a good way to introduce the concept of equality versus equity. If equality is giving everyone the same size of box, then equity is giving everyone a different box\u2014specifically, one tall enough to allow them to see over the fence.<\/p>\n

Here, we address that people don\u2019t start off on even footing, so we adapt our solution to fit the original problem. It’s not \u201cfair.\u201d We are giving different people different aids, but this solution allows us to help those who need different treatment and won\u2019t benefit from a blanket style or a one-size-fits-all solution.<\/p>\n

Life is full of equality-versus-equity moments, and knowing the difference is key to solving any problems relating to feminism. Understanding that we all come from different walks of life, have different resources at our disposal, and possess different abilities will allow us to come together and find a solution\u2014a proper solution\u2014to the problem at hand.<\/p>\n

Speaking of proper solutions, there\u2019s one more scenario for that \u201ccan\u2019t see over the fence\u201d example from earlier: what if we just\u2026 built a new fence? One that was see-through? The whole box thing was put in place to fix the issue of height, but height wasn\u2019t the underlying problem\u2014it was the fence. If we can fix the fence, we don\u2019t need to mess around with boxes, equality, or equity at all.<\/p>\n

This last bit is the key to fixing problems in our society. We need to stop focusing on a way to improve unfavourable conditions, and start getting rid of the unfavourable conditions in the first place.<\/p>\n

Easier said than done, I know. But our problems are fixable. We can change our society for the better. It just takes a bit of awareness, and a little lesson on equality versus equity to spark new solutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Equality is discussed heavily when talking about feminism, and that makes sense\u2014being a feminist is about striving for fairness between all genders and sexual orientations. But I feel like that equality itself is never truly elaborated on. What does equality look like in the real world? Is it even something we should be striving for? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21289,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21288\/revisions\/21289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}