Equity or Equality?

Question

Concerning one of my earlier questions, somebody answered that saying "gender Equality" was incorrect. That "gender Equity" was correct. I understand what he's getting at but most people just say gender equality. Which is more corrrect?

Answer 1

That was me!!! I don't think either was implied to be more correct. However, all I said was IF you advocate equality you cannot advocate gender equity. Yet, should you advocate gender equity you could still be hopeful (as I am) that gender equality would be the outcome. You just couldn't actively pursue it cause then you reject equity lol

Edit: btw the reason I took issue with this was because I know that first wave feminism was concerned with gender equity because it wanted equal rights between men and women which is fair and equitable of course. However, although advocating equality later in the second wave was not in itself wrong, the reason for this change was. They initially hoped as I still do that gender equity would have resulted in gender equality. Because it didn't they were forced to actively pursue gender equality. Sorry if this sounds overly critical but based on current policies it is hard to deny. Now i'll be quiet :)

Answer 2

Both are (or should be) correct.

We should know that equalism (unlike feminism) is about recognizing that men and women are born DIFFERENT but are of EQUAL WORTH, and entitled to FAIR TREATMENT under JUST LAWS. Note the words in capitals, they are of the essence. (http://www.celticsurf.net/phpBB3/viewfor... )

Answer 3

That's just the peanut gallery.  They get confused easily.  Equality is not about "gender".  Equality is about equal rights regardless of genitalia.  For example, with human rights legal protections, although males are generally larger than females or other males, that doesn't give a larger person any "special" rights to beat up smaller people.  But, before feminism, it was considered OK for a man to beat a woman.  They didn't beat women large enough to fight back.  It was legal for men to rape their wives until recently.  Then, females fought for and won legal legal protections such as domestic violence laws. (There were laws protecting men from domestic violence with mandatory sentences for women but few laws protecting women, and in most places until the Violence Against Women Act in 1994 in the U.S., horses had better legal protections from abuse than did women.)

Another way to look at it is "equal rights" simply means we all have a right to be in a boat.  How we choose to behave on the boat is up to us as individuals.  Many people confuse the human rights aspect of "equality" with the cultural institution of Courtship / Marriage / Family.  In that institution, every culture has its own different notions about how men and women are supposed to behave and in each culture people get acculturated to foolishly believe those notions are natural laws.  They are not.  

Anthropologists call those notions "gender" concepts.  In all patriarchal cultures, males suffer from acculturated delusions of "gender" superiority and believe that "entitles" them in this huge male entitlement paradigm the submissiveness and servitude of women.  It's in THAT area of "gender" that some morons get especially confused about "equality".  

Also, many people assume that all matters in the Universe have the human male body as its Gold Standard of what is the "perfect" creature and societies have traditionally been designed to accomodate only males.  If the situation were reversed and females suffered from such self-centeredness, they might furnish a classroom with the "perfect" sized desk and chair combo, perfectly designed to accomodate the average medium size of females.  In that school, then, all the larger males would have to just scrunch down uncomfortably and "make-do" with desks that are too small.

In that society, to continue the reversal, the desks would be the "perfect" size and the problem would be with men being too large and "inferior" in matters of size.  Silly, huh?  Welcome to male-dominated society.  One set or another of genitals shouldn't determine a Gold Standard for designing a society anymore than "superiority" of skin color should determine for whom only societies should be designed to accomodate.  

In real life, for example, men need less public toilets than do women, who require more time than do men due to breastfeeding, periods and having to disrobe to use the toilet.  Men have told women to just "make-do", afterall, it's not guys' fault that it takes women so much longer than the perfect Gold Standard superior male being. lmao. That arrogance is sexual discrimination based on non-parity.  Parity is a better word than equity because equity is too closely associated with financial stocks.