What is the Feminist Plan for Equality

Firstly, how much equality? That sounds like a daft question to some, but what I mean by it is do you want equality of opportunity, or equality of outcome?

Equality of opportunity means that men and women have the right to acquire the same opportunities, chances and success – providing that other requirements are met.

Equality of outcome is more about distribution, rather than equal rights. It means men and women – as gender collectives, rather than individuals – having the same result in terms of numbers. Other requirements here are basically irrelevant. This is best explained in an example.

Let’s say a highly successful company, which employs around thousands of people, has 9 top managers. 9 people own this company. 7 are male, and 2 are female. They want a 10th top manager, so they consider 2 people – and will end up recruiting just 1 of them. One is a man, the other a woman. The man has double the number of qualifications, works longer hours, on the whole is more dedicated, and it is the interviewer’s professional opinion that he would bring more to the position than the woman. None of this is to do with his gender, they just think he’s more fit.

Someone who supports equality of opportunity, like me, would say the man should receive the job and that the 8:2 ratio is insignificant because firstly, those 2 women already demonstrate that it’s possible to be a successful woman. Secondly, they were both given an equal chance to try. Thirdly, he is more qualified. Fourthly, it’s worth considering that the business may just be a more male dominated sector anyway. If more men are in a certain field, then more men will take the senior managerial positions – and vice versa.

Somebody who supports equality of outcome, like (the vast vast vast majority of) feminists would say that the woman should get the job. This is because the fact that there are only 2 females currently on the top board is evidence of patriarchy implemented into the company. Also, with a third woman added, at least it’s getting closer to a 50/50 quota right? Feminists who strive for equal outcome discard so many other contributing factors, that it’s very difficult for me to sit here and take them seriously.

The BBC pledged to have 50% male and 50% female on-air roles within the next four years. www.theguardian.com/media/2016/a… This is an example of striving for equality of outcome, which I am extremely against, because it means the advocacy and endorsement of positive discrimination. It means reaching out to only half of the population, not showing the other half the amazing opportunities and careers which BBC offers. It means that when BBC interviewers are interviewing males, at the back of their mind they’re thinking ‘Okay can’t be too lenient on him. I’m interviewing a woman next!’ It means promoting identity politics, aka judging people based on characteristics rather than what they will bring to the table. It means ostracizing men, who may be better at the job than their female counterpart as I demonstrated in my previous example. But to the BBC, that’s all irrelevant.

Also, it’s 48.4% female. They’re making a mountain out of a molehill. That’s almost equal anyway!

Quickly going back to the term identity politics. I saw this prominently in the US election campaign. Hillary Clinton, in interviews, saying ‘Vote for me because I’m a woman.’ ‘One of my merits is: I’m a woman!’ ‘All these mothers vote for me because I’m a woman.’ (www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SQ8xTcK… the only version I could find to prove her saying this was a remix XD) And I’m sorry, but the glass ceiling argument isn’t good enough here. Such citations tell little girls that in order for their dreams to come true, they need to see someone with similar characteristics to them be successful. This is a dangerous mindset to pass onto a child, because it makes them become obsessed with traits like gender, to the extent of some girls feeling like we still live in an institutionalized oppressive patriarchy, because ‘someone like me has never made it to the top!’ In a Western country like America (or where I’m from – the United Kingdom), where we have equality of opportunity, parents should be showing that to their children instead of making them obsess over identification rather than what really matters (ie Hillary’s actual policies). The same happened in 2008 and 2012. Many Americans voted for Obama because they wanted a first ever black president. Now – call me a bigot, but isn’t this sort of attitude demonstrating racism and sexism too? If feminists and SJW’s really ‘just want equality’, then why is voting for Obama and Hillary based off race and gender acceptable, but voting for Romney or Trump based off race or gender being a racial supremacist misogynist?

So, feminists, what kind of equality do you want? Do you plan on attaining equal outcome? So statistically evenly distributed results? Or do you wish to pursue equality of opportunity? Because if it’s the latter, and you live in a Western nation… Chances are we have that already. Therefore, with the exception of a few minor tweaks, depending on what country you live in, your job is done.

8 Comments on “What is the Feminist Plan for Equality”

  1. I was in Burger King, with two friends. One Male, and one Female. We are all 16, and it was after school so we stopped by to get some food and just talk about things. Halfway through, we noticed a Middle Aged man sitting across from us, winking, gesturing, and smiling menancingly at my friend and I. My female friend was immeadiately intimidated and upset and wanted to leave as quickly as possible, while my male friend was more embarrassed than anything and wanted to leave. I, however, was infuriated. As a 16 year old girl, this treatment is fairly common when in public, but I had decided I’d had enough. I told my friends that I was going to do something about it, and I was told not to, that it was a “bad idea” and that I could be “judged”. But I wasn’t having any of that. As I walked up to the man, he continued to wink and gesture. I immeadiately questioned him “Is there something wrong?” (The whole of Burger King went quiet) He slowly looked up at me and said “No I just find you very beautiful”. At this point I could see people giving each other looks and raising their eyebrows at the girl who was just “making a fuss” I looked him square in the face and said “Oh so you’re attracted to children? I’m a 16 year old girl and this not only counts as perverse, but paedophilic as well. Leave me and girls like me alone and don’t you dare even look at me again, pervert”. To my surprise this was greeted by a slow applause, coming from various women in the joint. This not only made me feel happy but also thankful that the movement on social media has helped me to believe that I can stand up for myself, and others can too, and instead of being greeted by shame at the end of this experience, I was backed by other women who go through the same thing daily.

    • Could you explain to me what this example has to do with equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome? Otherwise it just seems like you’re trying to distract from the topic being discussed.

  2. The only way a patriarchal society works is when it controls everything the opposite of itself.
    In other words masculinity is in it soley for equality for itself, while femininity is equality for
    everyone…oppressing those unlike you doesn’t bring prosperity, it breeds contempt, then eventually forces misery to acts of rebellion!

  3. Feminism is not about hating men or masculinity. Its about embracing and celebrating everything feminine that has been degraded and belittled simply because its not masculine.
    Femininity is not a mere concept based on some guys mind set of a womans lipstick color or boob size, its a reality for more than half the worlds population of people and represents the depth of self actualization of what is possible when we reject that being female is a inferior representation of a human being.

  4. The problem however is that the two people interviewed in your first example haven’t had equality of opportunity, and it is great that the women on the board already had success but they may have had to work twice as hard as men to get there. I agree with you 100% that equality of opportunity is the way to go, but we arent even close to achieving this so why not some equality of outcome to help things along. There are a number of problems with what you describe.
    1. The way job specifications are created are largely as a result of looking at how they were carried out by those that had that role before. So as this was historically men the job specifications are likely to have some biases in them that favour men over women.
    2. We arent even close to equality of opportunity or equality in society/personal lives and that may therefore be the reason that the man looks “better” on paper than the woman. For example, if they both have children it is more likely that the man is able to still work hard because his wife takes a bigger proportion of child care, and the woman isnt able to because she does at home (I am not saying this happens in every home but it is still a high occurrence)
    3. Women face bias from day 1 which is the cause of some industries being male dominated but also a lack of women in leadership roles. For example, the demonstration of the same behaviour in kids is labelled as “bossy” in girls and “leadership skills” in boys. This carries on throughout life and therefore contributes towards inequal opportunity.

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