Equality has become one of those buzzwords. By saying, "For the sake of equality..." the implication is that if someone disagrees with you, they are prejudiced, sexist, intolerant, bigoted, or a number of other derogatory words.
But just what is equality?
It has it's roots in the word equal, of things being the same or of equal value. And yet, you look at society, and it seems that the quote from Animal Farm is more accurate, that "some... are more equal than others."
Over the course of history, due to the differences between men and women, certain 'gender roles' developed. Things like men being soldiers and hunters whilst women looked after the family and cooked. As time moved on, and the 'hunter-gatherer' theme diminished, a man's role was replaced with being the one to work. Much of the work could have been done by men or women, but due to historical influence, it was assumed to be the man's responsibility. With the feminist movement, this came to be seen as if special privileges were given to men, that men were 'more equal' than women.
Unfortunately, the feminist movement didn't stop with equality. Their crusade essentially became one of vengeance, of wanting 'one-up' on men, of women being 'more equal' for a change.
Personally, I am a big supporter of equality. But it has to be understood as equality. I believe that if two people are doing the same job, they should be paid the same amount, regardless of whether one is male and the other female.
But I like to ask the awkward questions: if I were to take the majority of a year off work to look after a child, should I expect to be paid for not working? It sounds harsh, because we live in a world which has 'maternity leave' and to suggest that a woman should surrender her income if she wants a family has come to sound abhorrent and unjust. With the increased financial responsibility of an additional person in the family, to surrender income seems like a double-whammy of hardship.
And so, equality laws have been made to allow for 'paternity leave': for the man to have time off work to help support the family with the new-born. However, this isn't exactly equal as the husband has far less time off than his wife.
But what about companies? Does a CEO really want to be paying employees for not working? The problem with the welfare state is that people are getting money for nothing. Just as people find ways around the system to claim large amounts of benefits to avoid working, so a woman could work up to a good job and then aim to have children at regular intervals so that she can work the minimum amount of time to then be eligible for the maximum amount of maternity leave. She would end up with a large family and a well-paid job without needing to work the whole time.
This is why equality is such a difficult issue.
And it's not helped with the current trend of entitlement. How often do young couples sit down and ask, "With our current income, can we afford to have a family?" How often does a husband change his job before having a family in order to better support having a family?
The current cultural trend is that a person should be allowed to do what they want, and the government (or employers) have to do their part to help that person.
And this is where society gets messy. Equality has become synonymous with entitlement, but it's more politically correct and persuasive.
Just think of a man saying to his employer, "Since women are entitled to maternity leave, how are you fulfilling your obligations to my entitlement to paternity leave?"
Compared with: "How does this company fulfil it's requirement of equality regarding paternity leave?"
Current societal trends are such that if a person can't get what they want, it must be an equality issue. Essentially, a selfish person can be represented as a victim of inequality.
For centuries - millennia, even - marriage has been between a man and a woman. Gay marriage is about people wanting to have their same-sex relationship elevated to the level of a real marriage. Throughout history, some men and women have engaged in homosexual activities, and they have known that it is against the natural order of things. But the current trend is to make out that this is an equality issue: that a person who chooses to engage in homosexual activity is entitled to the same 'rights' as heterosexual people who are legally married.
By treating it as an equality issue, we now have to consider the morality of allowing homosexual couples to adopt children: whether depriving those children of a mother or father (and the imbalance and mental problems that will cause) is more important than the 'equality' of viewing a same-sex partnership as a marriage.
The next big 'equality' issue is that of transgenderism. Healthcare was developed to fight illnesses and diseases, to prolong human life and to prevent it from ending prematurely. As experimentation continued, we now have the issue of whether someone who decides they want to be the opposite sex is entitled to have that operation under their standard medical care service. Should such a person be viewed as a person wanting plastic surgery to change their appearance, 'entitled' to have to pay the bill themselves?
It becomes an equality issue: that all people should be comfortable with their body (and that it is the healthcare service's duty to enable this). So what, then, do we make of the people who are not comfortable with their body and want plastic surgery for things other than genital mutilation?
But the 'equality' here is going too far. Already there are thoughts of lowering the age of starting medical treatment for a sex change, due to a mindset that children should be considered equal to adults. But this form of equality would cause significant moral issues: would a child be equal to an adult when it comes to, for example, drinking alcohol? Driving a car? Voting? Giving consent for a sexual relationship?
The equality argument is a pseudo argument.
Does equality mean that we should all be free to choose which sex we want to be?
Or should equality mean that we should all learn to live with the body we were born with?
Because even equality doesn't allow for us to choose the genitals we're born with.
It seems that some people feel that equality is about life being equally easy/difficult for each person. So if a person finds life really tough, allowances should be made for them.
But the truth is that life does not support equality. Some people find it easy to make money. Some people are more intelligent than others (some people use their intelligence too). Some people are more athletic. Some people can eat a huge meal and not put on weight. Humans are all different, but we have to live in the same world. We just have to "play the hand we're dealt".
Different people have different struggles and we just have to get through. Yes, we should help each other. We can't say, "Hey, I got dealt a bad hand, we need to change the game we're playing."
Essentially, it's the 'snowflakes' who want the allowances to be made. And that mindset is affecting older generations who now ask, "Well, why do they get special privileges?"
We need to help these people cope with life, not change the rules to suit themselves.
It's not about equality. The real issue is resilience.
But just what is equality?
It has it's roots in the word equal, of things being the same or of equal value. And yet, you look at society, and it seems that the quote from Animal Farm is more accurate, that "some... are more equal than others."
Over the course of history, due to the differences between men and women, certain 'gender roles' developed. Things like men being soldiers and hunters whilst women looked after the family and cooked. As time moved on, and the 'hunter-gatherer' theme diminished, a man's role was replaced with being the one to work. Much of the work could have been done by men or women, but due to historical influence, it was assumed to be the man's responsibility. With the feminist movement, this came to be seen as if special privileges were given to men, that men were 'more equal' than women.
Unfortunately, the feminist movement didn't stop with equality. Their crusade essentially became one of vengeance, of wanting 'one-up' on men, of women being 'more equal' for a change.
Personally, I am a big supporter of equality. But it has to be understood as equality. I believe that if two people are doing the same job, they should be paid the same amount, regardless of whether one is male and the other female.
But I like to ask the awkward questions: if I were to take the majority of a year off work to look after a child, should I expect to be paid for not working? It sounds harsh, because we live in a world which has 'maternity leave' and to suggest that a woman should surrender her income if she wants a family has come to sound abhorrent and unjust. With the increased financial responsibility of an additional person in the family, to surrender income seems like a double-whammy of hardship.
And so, equality laws have been made to allow for 'paternity leave': for the man to have time off work to help support the family with the new-born. However, this isn't exactly equal as the husband has far less time off than his wife.
But what about companies? Does a CEO really want to be paying employees for not working? The problem with the welfare state is that people are getting money for nothing. Just as people find ways around the system to claim large amounts of benefits to avoid working, so a woman could work up to a good job and then aim to have children at regular intervals so that she can work the minimum amount of time to then be eligible for the maximum amount of maternity leave. She would end up with a large family and a well-paid job without needing to work the whole time.
This is why equality is such a difficult issue.
And it's not helped with the current trend of entitlement. How often do young couples sit down and ask, "With our current income, can we afford to have a family?" How often does a husband change his job before having a family in order to better support having a family?
The current cultural trend is that a person should be allowed to do what they want, and the government (or employers) have to do their part to help that person.
And this is where society gets messy. Equality has become synonymous with entitlement, but it's more politically correct and persuasive.
Just think of a man saying to his employer, "Since women are entitled to maternity leave, how are you fulfilling your obligations to my entitlement to paternity leave?"
Compared with: "How does this company fulfil it's requirement of equality regarding paternity leave?"
Current societal trends are such that if a person can't get what they want, it must be an equality issue. Essentially, a selfish person can be represented as a victim of inequality.
For centuries - millennia, even - marriage has been between a man and a woman. Gay marriage is about people wanting to have their same-sex relationship elevated to the level of a real marriage. Throughout history, some men and women have engaged in homosexual activities, and they have known that it is against the natural order of things. But the current trend is to make out that this is an equality issue: that a person who chooses to engage in homosexual activity is entitled to the same 'rights' as heterosexual people who are legally married.
By treating it as an equality issue, we now have to consider the morality of allowing homosexual couples to adopt children: whether depriving those children of a mother or father (and the imbalance and mental problems that will cause) is more important than the 'equality' of viewing a same-sex partnership as a marriage.
The next big 'equality' issue is that of transgenderism. Healthcare was developed to fight illnesses and diseases, to prolong human life and to prevent it from ending prematurely. As experimentation continued, we now have the issue of whether someone who decides they want to be the opposite sex is entitled to have that operation under their standard medical care service. Should such a person be viewed as a person wanting plastic surgery to change their appearance, 'entitled' to have to pay the bill themselves?
It becomes an equality issue: that all people should be comfortable with their body (and that it is the healthcare service's duty to enable this). So what, then, do we make of the people who are not comfortable with their body and want plastic surgery for things other than genital mutilation?
But the 'equality' here is going too far. Already there are thoughts of lowering the age of starting medical treatment for a sex change, due to a mindset that children should be considered equal to adults. But this form of equality would cause significant moral issues: would a child be equal to an adult when it comes to, for example, drinking alcohol? Driving a car? Voting? Giving consent for a sexual relationship?
The equality argument is a pseudo argument.
Does equality mean that we should all be free to choose which sex we want to be?
Or should equality mean that we should all learn to live with the body we were born with?
Because even equality doesn't allow for us to choose the genitals we're born with.
It seems that some people feel that equality is about life being equally easy/difficult for each person. So if a person finds life really tough, allowances should be made for them.
But the truth is that life does not support equality. Some people find it easy to make money. Some people are more intelligent than others (some people use their intelligence too). Some people are more athletic. Some people can eat a huge meal and not put on weight. Humans are all different, but we have to live in the same world. We just have to "play the hand we're dealt".
Different people have different struggles and we just have to get through. Yes, we should help each other. We can't say, "Hey, I got dealt a bad hand, we need to change the game we're playing."
Essentially, it's the 'snowflakes' who want the allowances to be made. And that mindset is affecting older generations who now ask, "Well, why do they get special privileges?"
We need to help these people cope with life, not change the rules to suit themselves.
It's not about equality. The real issue is resilience.
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