Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 01:38:19 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: M-I: Equality and Difference (was Affirmative Action)


Let me fresh out one of the comments I made in an earlier post. Treating
peoples with different circumstances and histories "equally" can and has
produced inequality.

This is one of the hypothetical examples that I think would allow you to
understand that formally equal treatment can have discriminatory effects.
Consider the law that makes it illegal to sleep in the parks or under the
bridges. In theory, this applies to everybody, regardless of their
circumstances. However, when put into practice, it will be the homeless who
will end up becoming criminalized, not the well off who may happen to take
a nap on a park bench on a sunny day; besides, the people who have homes of
their own do not have to sleep under the bridges to begin with.

Though both men and women suffer from the lack of access to reproductive
health care and paid parental leaves, such inadequate health care and
welfare provisions have disproportionate effects on women workers, though,
again, on paper, both sexes are treated "equally" badly. Furthermore, it is
likely to be necessary to pass a "special" legislation to protect the right
of pregnant workers to their jobs. Women and men are not the same. For
instance, men do not get pregnant. So in many cases, it takes "special
rights" and "special legislations" to counteract the capitalists' desire to
take advantage of biological differences and historically produced
inequalities.

Yoshie




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