Equality and privilege in four (and a bit) really simple graphs
Please excuse the crudity of this model, I didn't have time to build it to scale or to paint it. (points if you get that reference *wink*)
This is my explanation of how the process of achieving equality is believed to work and how it actually should work. I've labeled the graphs with men and women, but it can also be applied to religion, sexual orientation, etc. anyplace there's a dominant group and an other or others.
We start with a graph of what a lot of people probably think the current situation is:
In this belief, the place men are at is what we're aiming for, and women are not there but somewhere near it (YMMV as to close how or far you think we are).
Now with this graph in mind it's understandable that people don't like the idea of affirmative action. After all, wont this be the result if we give women special advantages that men don't get...
Oh noes! Matriarchy! *screams in terror*
The problem is that the first graph is wrong. That's not where it actually where we're at. The graph of the current situation starts out looking like this:
Again YMMV on where the women exactly start out. The important part is that the position that men are currently in is not at that equality line. It's easier to grasp what I'm on about if I add an little extra bit of text to this graph...
So, the correct way to frame this is actually what happens if we stop giving the affirmative action to men for a while and give it to women instead...
Bingo! That's the theory anyway. :)
This is my explanation of how the process of achieving equality is believed to work and how it actually should work. I've labeled the graphs with men and women, but it can also be applied to religion, sexual orientation, etc. anyplace there's a dominant group and an other or others.
We start with a graph of what a lot of people probably think the current situation is:
In this belief, the place men are at is what we're aiming for, and women are not there but somewhere near it (YMMV as to close how or far you think we are).
Now with this graph in mind it's understandable that people don't like the idea of affirmative action. After all, wont this be the result if we give women special advantages that men don't get...
Oh noes! Matriarchy! *screams in terror*
The problem is that the first graph is wrong. That's not where it actually where we're at. The graph of the current situation starts out looking like this:
Again YMMV on where the women exactly start out. The important part is that the position that men are currently in is not at that equality line. It's easier to grasp what I'm on about if I add an little extra bit of text to this graph...
So, the correct way to frame this is actually what happens if we stop giving the affirmative action to men for a while and give it to women instead...
Bingo! That's the theory anyway. :)