Equality isn’t ignoring differences
I recently read “Invisible Women” by Caroline Criado Perez. It’s an incredible book cataloging the ways in which the world is not designed for women, in large part because data that captures the realities of women’s lives isn’t captured and therefore cannot inform decision-making. For complete nerds like myself, it’s a treasure trove of case studies, data analysis, and strong arguments bringing it all together.
Some examples include how snow-plow-schedules can be sexists. An assertion that seems kinda crazy on the face, but with just a small amount of investigation and data analysis becomes obviously clear. This is because, when the roads that get prioritization don’t account for female travel patterns (which often include side trips on auxiliary streets to schools and groceries), we see more women getting in snow-related accidents and injuries. Yet when governments take into account these differences in travel patterns in their weather plans, there was a total decrease in injuries that resulted in hospitalization.
Stories like that above litter Criado Perez’s book. One example after another of how the lack of information available on women’s lives leads to environments that are not equipped for women.
It was an eye-opening moment for me, as I began to realize that equality isn’t the ignorance of difference. It’s a strange paradox, that there are some differences between groups of people that must be understood to create a world where the individual can thrive.
I was given an opportunity to share my newly gained insight on Twitter, not but a few weeks later. There were the usual suspects arguing that women aren’t paid less, but rather “when controlling for time off to have children, women are paid the same as men.”
It took all my effort to not slam on the CAPSLOCK and fall into a stereotypical twitter rage. But yes gentlemen, that’s the point. In a world where only women can have children, economically punishing them for it, is in fact discrimination. Men become fathers with no such economic penalty. If the only way to win in our economy is to be or at least live like a man, then no, we cannot say that we live in an equal society where individuals can create their own destiny.
Because of this wonderful book, I am able to see how this contradiction plays out between the sexes, but am trying to find other examples. Disability comes to mind easily. How can a person flourish in a work or school environment if they have to spend countless extra hours finding a door they can wheel through?
There is obviously a balance that must be struck. There is an inherent tension between accommodation and universality. The amount of time a parent leaves the workplace, even to care for children, may have an economic effect even in a sex-equitable world, for example. Yet, we seem far away from erroring towards too much accommodation. But one of the great steps toward finding that balance is central to Criado Perez’s thesis: we must collect the appropriate data to even know what changes might be most meaningful.
Only by having a clear picture of our present can we build an informed future.
