Gender Equity: Is it Fair?
Janet: I attended our niece’s graduation from UW (University of Washington). We sat in the audience as the graduating class shared their senior projects. Using dazzling technology, these amazing students bathed us in hope for our humanity. Anne’s presentation was on the distinction between equality and equity as it related the environment and human interaction. It fascinated me. I’d marched for equal rights in the 60’s but never thought about the inequity of equality.
Annie went on to work with an environmental community planning organization and, as we celebrated her accomplishment that weekend, I was obsessed with my own ignorance. I pestered her at the the post grad gathering. She was polite but like most new graduates, it was her time to party.
I wanted to know more. I was a woman who worked and only found out too late I’d been paid differently than a man in the same position.
So, I started reading about how equity played out at work.
How Equality and Equity Are Different (And Why It Matters in the Workplace)
“On the job, issues of gender, race, sexual orientation, language, and disability require an employer, to be deliberately conscious of equity when creating company policies and workflows. Choices like offering gender-neutral restrooms, ensuring interview panels are diverse, providing accessible workspaces, and eliminating discriminatory handbook language requires more intentional thinking, but the result is worthwhile: An environment that creates equal access and opportunities for all.”
- Premier Talent Partners, Jul 29, 2019,
https://www.premiertalentpartners.com/how-equality-and-equity-are-different/
By the time I retired as manager in the company I worked for, my pay was the same as all managers. The company shared that all managers started at the same rate and were rewarded on performance. The transgender manager was paid the same as I was. No question then, but…..
Marie: I’ve always just been who I am. I have not been tasked with trying to find out if I identified with being more male than female. Had I been born in different shoes, what might I have faced? Getting up and going to a job where I could not be myself? Trying to be someone I am not – inventing an identity more acceptable than who I am? I’ve tried to broaden my understanding around this issue.
Laura E Durso writing in American Progress.org, extensively reports on the status of how passing supportive policies can support the community:
“The massacre at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida, last June claimed the lives of nearly 50 people,
the majority of whom identified as LGBTQ and people of color,
and the number of transgender people murdered in 2016 simply for being themselves,
almost all of whom were transgender women of color, was the highest yet recorded.”
We saw the deaths at The Pulse nightclub in Florida, read about the Stonewall riots in New York, and saw loved ones die of AIDS before we learned how, medically, to cope with it. In 2015, when the Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage, this was a significant milestone for Gay rights, yet here we are in 2021, and there is more work to be done. While we proclaim to believe in equality, what we really need is equity.
Policy ideas that start at local levels can trickle ‘UP’ to state and federal levels over time. Many communities have leaders in a position with both the knowledge and compassion to make decisions that fully include and can protect vulnerable and marginalized groups such as the LGBTQ community. The article goes on the summarize how locals are grappling with equity.
We wondered how equity and equality plays out in our community of Houston.
Janet: In Brandon Wolf’s article in Out Smart Magazine on Jo Jones, the Houston Police Department’s Liaison with the LGBTQ community, he notes:
“That position, which was created to streamline communication between activists and police, is now held by HPD senior officer Josephine “Jo” Jones, a member of the LGBTQ community who has held the position for the past year.”
http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/2021/01/meet-houston-police-departments-lgbtq-liason
Brandon quotes Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo in the same article.
“There is a history of police not respecting the LGBTQ community. Finally, the Stonewall riots in New York City gave rise to a movement,” HPD Chief of Police Art Acevedo says. “We want to send a message to our workforce that we will ensure an interest in the priorities and concerns of the LGBTQ community. And that is why I think it’s important to have [Jo Jones serve as] a liaison who can be the eyes and ears for the department.”
We look forward to our interview with Officer Jones and will add her to our list of honored contributors to our movement.
What can you do? Educate yourself and ask the questions about equity in your community.
And if you have a story that you want to tell about your experience being harassed, submit your story at www.oursilentvoice.com and, take the plunge into being published!