In our society we have heard a lot about the fight for equality but being equal and fair is not always simple and straightforward. Sometimes, people may need different treatment to level their opportunities. This is called equity. Does this mean we need to treat people differently in order to gain equality? If so, how can we do this without undermining equality?
Let’s start with the simple definition of What is Equality?
The Equality and Human Rights Commission describe equality as:
“Ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents.”
In other words, equality means ensuring that everyone has the same opportunities and receives the same treatment and support.
And What is Equity?
Equity is about giving people what they need, in order to make things fair, which means giving more to those who need it.
You have probably seen the picture below as a depiction of Equity which shows three people trying to watch a baseball game over the top of a fence. The people are different heights, so the shorter ones have a harder time seeing.
In the first of two images, all three people have one crate to stand on. In other words, there is “equality,” because everyone has the same number of crates – they were treated equally. While this is helpful for the middle-height person, it is not enough for the shortest and superfluous for the tallest. In contrast, in the second image there is “equity” — each person has the number of crates they need to enjoy the game.
The distinction between equity and equality is very important. If we were talking about school funding, for instance, advocating for equality would mean ensuring that all schools had the same amount of resources per pupil (an improvement in most cases, definitely). On the other hand, advocating for equity would mean recognizing that some schools — like those serving students in low-income Communities of Color — will actually need more resources (funding, experienced teachers, relevant curriculum, etc.) if we are going to make a dent in the educational disparities that have come to be known as the “achievement gap.”
Looking at the picture again, we see that the problem is some people need more support to see over the fence because they are shorter, an issue inherent to the people themselves. That’s fine if we’re talking about height, but if this is supposed to be a metaphor for other inequities, it becomes problematic. For example, if we return to the school funding example, this implies that students in low-income and marginalized Communities need more resources in their schools because they are inherently less academically capable. They (or their families, or their communities) are metaphorically “shorter” and need more support. But that is not why the so-called “achievement gap” exists. As many have argued, it should actually be termed the “opportunity gap” because the problem is not in the abilities of students, but the number of opportunities they have access to. This is rooted in a history of oppression, from colonization and slavery, and sustained by systemic racism and the country’s ever-growing economic inequality.
This metaphor is actually a great example of deficit thinking — an ideology that blames victims of oppression for their own situation. As with the image, deficit thinking makes systemic forms of racism and oppression invisible. Other images, like the one of different animals having to climb a tree, or of people picking fruit, suffer from the same problem. How would we make these root causes more visible in our “equity vs. equality” image?
Well, in the metaphor of the fence, this would require making clear that the reason some people have more difficulty seeing than others is not because of their height, but because of the context around them. The true solution then would be, to be fair to everyone and to actually change the economic gap, creating opportunities for every class, making sure everyone has access to quality education and job opportunities, meaning, that the in the best case scenario we would have no fence at all, and the game could be equally, and fairly, enjoyed by everyone!
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