What exactly is equality? I always thought that it meant that everyone should be treated equally. That is, everyone should be treated in exactly the same manner as everyone else. It seems sensible to me, after all, why should a non-white person be treated any differently to a white person? A Christian different to a Jew? A woman different to a man? A gay man or a lesbian different to a straight person?
Why should anyone be treated differently to anyone else?
But they are. Look at the Government statistics for employment rates for disadvantaged groups and see the problem. Of course, I am primarily interested in gender discrimination. Gender discrimination in employment is still very strong. If it wasn’t then the statistics quoted in my post The Gender Pay and Opportunities Gap would not exist.
Forty years of gender equality legislation and it still does not exist in the work place. Of course, the reason for this, or so we are led to believe, is because women do not desire careers, but make other choices in life.
Remembering that legislation is in place, then how can discrimination still exist? How does it happen?
Take a simple example of two people of the same age that leave school, go to university, and then start a job at the same time. Both of these people achieved first class honours from UK universities and found jobs in the same department and office. They both started work in the same week and come from middle class families in Surrey. Two very similar people. Except that I forgot to mention that one of them is female and the other male.
Initially, they go on intensive training at the same time and pass their professional qualifications at the same time through the intensive programme. Then they really settle down into work. They are assigned to the same management group. Work is allocated by the senior manager in the department.
Initially, they are both given similar cases to work on, sometimes even collaborating. The only noticeable difference is that the woman clears her workload and leaves the office at the end of the working day, whereas the man tends to stay longer into the evening, as he has not kept up with the work rate.
More complex cases start to arrive, and a choice has to be made as to who should get these cases. The Senior manager allocating the cases does not intentionally discriminate, but chooses the man to take n the more complex cases. He struggles with the more complex work and extends his working hours to cope. The woman starts to seek additional work as she is completing her less complex cases in a faster time than originally.
Now appraisal time arrives and the man is rated higher than the woman, after all, he is taking on more complex work than the woman. This seems fair, after all, he is doing more complex work. But is it fair? Why is the woman not doing some of the more complex cases? Why is she not being given the same opportunities as the man?
Of course, this means that the man is promoted sooner than the woman and all of a sudden, the differences between their career paths becomes clear. What started as two equals soon changes simply because of the actions of one person.
The senior manager allocating the work did not intentionally discriminate, but chose the man as he happened to be still working outside normal working hours – working late because he was behind. ‘More dedicated’ was one of the comments from the senior manager. ‘Determined to get on’ was another. Never was the ‘struggling to keep up’ ever thought about. Of course, every Friday, the man was down at the bar drinking with the other men, whereas the woman headed home to prepare to go out. After all, work clothes are not party clothes for a young woman.
Equal, but unequal. Equal in terms of ability, but unequal in terms of opportunity.
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