The United Nations has 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aiming to achieve by 2030. The fifth one is SDG 5: Gender Equality. However, with the regression caused by the Covid-19 crisis, we are now 267 years away from reaching this goal, even if we only aim for economic equality. What can we do to shorten this time? We can help by providing equal opportunities to women, investing in women, simply, by believing in women. Nowadays, the most popular way to ensure equal opportunity is known as positive discrimination, fundamentally affirmative actions.
According to the definition of Cambridge Dictionary, positive discrimination means “the act of giving advantage to those groups in society that are often treated unfairly because of their race, sex, and so forth”. As an example, we can think of the quotas implemented by workplaces for disabled people. The underlying reason behind positive discrimination is that every human being is equal to one another, therefore, the opportunities being provided to each must be equal as well. Due to the existence of employers who want to cut off the expenses, and avoid the necessity of precautions to be taken, even though everyone is equal on paper, disabled people cannot be evaluated in equal terms. Positive discrimination, and similar initiatives aim to balance these existing inequalities.
To this point, we are good. The issue is, whenever the subject happens to be women, the confusion about positive discrimination that ascends. Positive discrimination is far from presenting women privileges that they did not deserve on silver platter. It is one of the steps that are taken in order to balance the exposed inequalities, and to equalize the status of women and men among the society. Maybe you think that women and men do already have equal rights, why in earth do we need positive discrimination? At this point, we need to differentiate between de facto and de jure. The equality on paper (de jure), does not reflect in real life (de facto) all the time. The fact that Turkey held its place on 133th out of 156 countries on the World Economic Forum 2021 Gender Inequality Index is an indicator of this situation.
When we think of the steps taken in order to protect the rights of women, and ensure gender equality among societies, we realize that many of the negative -mostly inaccurate- comments on these in fact take space in our minds, even influence our thoughts. Let’s take the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) for instance. The Convention, which was issued by the United Nations General Assembly and entered into force in 1981, as it goes without explaining thanks to its name, aims to prevent discrimination towards women. Turkey, as other states that signed the Convention, is one of the parties legally committed to follow necessary steps.
One of the conditions Turkey signed up for with CEDAW is to engage in affirmative actions. CEDAW defines affirmative action as “… all appropriate measures, including legislation, to ensure the full development and advancement of women , for the purpose of guaranteeing them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality with men”. It is frankly stated on Article 4 of the Convention that due to existing inequalities, these affirmative actions cannot be considered as discriminatory. To be precise, according to the Article 4, “adoption by States Parties of temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality between men and women shall not be considered discrimination as defined in the present Convention, but shall in no way entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate standards.”
For the ones still with question marks, I will present a case. Let’s imagine an employer is stuck between two candidates, and cannot choose with which one to proceed. One of them is a woman, and the other is a man. They share similar paths in education, experience, and qualities. They are both married. However, the employer is only worried about the female candidate and assumes that “when she gets pregnant, I will need to fill in her shoes, I better choose the other candidate”, and she gets eliminated from the process. Just like that. The employer takes this decision purely based on an innate feature of one party that cannot be changed, and the presumptions followed by it. Can we possibly speak of equal opportunity in this scenario? Affirmative action kicks in right at this point, as it should.
Contrary to some assumptions, these actions are not a form of “favouritism”; since affirmative action does not mean offering jobs to women only because they are women, albeit they are not qualified. Yet, its goal is to prevent women not getting job offers only because they are women, albeit they are qualified. Virginia Woolf, in her A Room of One’s Own novel, mentions that most authors known as anonymous throughout history were women.
It may seem far from the reality of today, for the ones who do not look close enough. However, inequality is not as simple as to disappear through a statement or law. Rather, it has layers, deep roots, and when normalised by the majority, it can even go unnoticed. Inequality does not disappear unless it is made fully visible; it only changes form. That is why, in order to achieve gender equality, we first need to see this shifted inequality, acknowledge it, and then act in concrete steps with holistic and comprehensive policies.
Due to our gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and many other traits, sometimes we are in advantage, and sometimes in disadvantage. Privilege is invisible to those who have it, as Professor Michael Kimmel puts. To me, the most challenging obstacle towards development, progress is this very circumstance. To make a positive social, environmental impact, first we must acknowledge our privileges. Only then can we avoid leaving the ones in need behind thanks to our privileges, and instead uplift them by taking advantage of our privileges. Thus, it is not enough for only women to take responsibility, we should share it. We have a long way to go, the more the merrier!
