IWD 2023: Embrace Equity
The theme for International Women’s Day 2023 is Embrace Equity, which prompts a discussion around the difference between ‘equity’ and ‘equality’.
The IWD 2023 Embrace Equity campaign theme seeks to get the world talking about why equal opportunities are no longer enough, and can in fact be exclusionary, rather than inclusive.
- Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities.
- Equity recognises that each person has different circumstances, and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.
Equity can be defined as giving everyone what they need to be successful. In other words, it’s not giving everyone the exact same thing. If we give everyone the exact same thing, expecting that will make people equal, it assumes that everyone started out in the same place – and this can be vastly inaccurate because everyone isn’t the same.
One of the earliest examples of equity is found in Medieval England, when English courts settled disputes according to Common Law. Justice was uniform and consistent, but not necessarily fair. For example, if two people both commit theft, but the stolen items have different value, should they receive the same punishment? Since then, Courts have adopted the principle of equity, taking a case-by-case approach to consider differing circumstances.
In political terms, equality is one of the foundations of democracy. Equality is based on the belief that all people should have the same opportunities for a happy life. Equity is linked to the ideal that success is based on personal efforts and not social status.
The goal of equity is to change systemic and structural barriers that get in the way of people’s ability to thrive.
The theme is an embrace- so we all did a group hug on our team call this morning to support the need for equity! Hopefully this campaign will make us all reassess what systemic barriers exist to true equity of opportunity, so we can all play our part in taking them down.
You can read much more about it here.
And a big shout out to Innovate UK who are holding a special event on the 8th March to celebrate IWD and their Women in Innovation initiative.
Let’s all Embrace Equity!
Author Name: Editor
Published content by The Divorce Surgery Editorial Team.
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