The Relentless March of Equality

By Anthony Khoo

We live in a society that encourages equality and condemns most forms of discrimination. In particular, we try to eliminate any prejudice related to physical appearance, religious beliefs, gender or sexuality.

This is not a bad thing.

Unfortunately, our efforts to eliminate the foul stench of injustice can sometimes go a bit far, creating in its place a stifling atmosphere of contemporary political correctness that becomes confining and counterproductive rather than liberating. There are so many physical and ideological differences between us as a population that in many ways our blind push for impartiality in all things is inherently flawed.

Just a few months ago former Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered her now famous ‘misogyny’ speech wherein she condemned double-standards and the notion that “men are by physiology or temperament more adapted to exercise authority or issue command”.

She does have a point, and I for one don’t disagree with her. That said, acceptable double standards do exist, most obviously in sport where athletes are usually separated according to gender.

Are these ‘double-standards’ fair? Events usually offer identical rewards for both men and women, even if the rules (for example best of three sets as opposed to five) are often different. In a world free of discrimination, shouldn‘t men and women compete in the same event on the same field and for the same prize? And if they did, would this then be fairer?

Probably not. And this is because men and women are different in terms of physiology and temperament, not to mention different in a whole host of other hormonal, physical and psychological areas. Gender shouldn’t be a discriminating factor in terms of job positions and promotions, but this works both ways. Someone shouldn’t be employed simply because they’re a member of the fairer sex, and having positions set aside or reserved for certain groups in society is hypocritical and arguably insulting.

I’m definitely not promulgating sexist (or racist) views, but men and women are different, and no amount of societal or psychological tinkering can really alter that fact.

Things become even more touchy when one moves away from gender to other points of contention like religious beliefs or sexual orientation. Tolerance and sensitivity for people who might hold values different than our own is certainly commendable, but there comes a point where wasting time on pedantic minutiae like having to use the word ‘partner’ becomes a little inane.

In many cases, I think people concentrate so hard to be politically correct merely to avoid being labelled offensive or insensitive. There is a tremendous pressure nowadays to be ‘anti-discriminatory’, and sometimes it’s safer just to go with the flow, flotsam set adrift by the petty perfectionism of our own capricious species.

Any sort of class distinction like ‘Muslim’, ‘female’ or ‘lesbian’ is intrinsically imperfect as all individuals are different despite their similarities. Saying people are different (viz. inferior) because of who they are or what they believe in is undeniably incorrect, but it’s equally wrong to say that x and y are the same, even if they’re both members of the same alphabet.

It might be unfair, but since when has the world been anything else?

In the words of Honor Harrington, the one certain thing in life is that no one can make the truth untrue simply because it hurts.