Philosophy Now Forum

I saw an interesting post on another forum about gender equality (equal opportunity, to put shortly) and gender equity (specifically in the context of addressing historical oppression).

The point was made that unlike racial equity (where wealth is denied or exploited on the basis of race historically, the privation of which continues or compounds by its very absence over time), women, while still historically oppressed, haven't had wealth privation compounded over time: e.g., if a Black family is redlined out of home ownership in an area (and so their descendants may "lose" huge amounts of potential equity over time), women that lost out on economic opportunities due to gendered/sex biases could marry men who didn't and have sons who didn't. Then, on the reverse, men with economic advantages could have daughters that would be economically disadvantaged on the basis of their sex: so the idea is that racial equity is not the same situation as gender equity (loss isn't passed and compounded over generations in the same way).

I'm inclined to say that I would agree with policies that take racial equity seriously, but I think things are much murkier with gender equity: it seems to me that gender equality is the more important issue (especially combatting implicit sex and gender biases). Are there more clear cases where gender equity might be warranted I'm not thinking of?

I think you're right, any gendered losses or gendered gains in the past are not necessarily inherited in a gendered way in the present.

Eg a woman who could have been a female Einstein, but wasn't taken seriously and lost out on a lifetime of achievement and wealth... maybe by pure chance her only surviving descendants are male. Would gender equity mean compensating these men for her lost opportunity? That would certainly be weird.

But then again, I'm not even sure how good the case is for racial discrimination in the present, in favour of black people for example, to make up for discrimination in the past. Even when the losses and gains are clearly heritable on a racial basis, I'm not convinced it's right to discriminate in the opposite direction.