'Gender equality is not an ethical ideal'
by Hugh McLachlan
The Scotsman
13 April 2007, p. 47.

RATHER than be gender-blind, various public bodies are required to become gender-vigilant under the new Gender Equality Duty (GED).

This is disconcerting. Even if one accepts that particular needs should be met, one might question whether public-sector employers and service providers should be required to meet them. There is a potential clash between the GED and the ethical principle of justice.

Justice means treating people the same unless there is a relevant reason for treating them differently and then treating them differently in a proportionate way. Justice requires the impartial treatment of individual people.

For instance, if the fact that a person is, say, homosexual, is irrelevant to the matter under consideration, it is unjust to make a difference to the treatment of the person on the basis of that factor.

Justice does not pertain to the treatment of categories of people. It pertains to the treatment of people. Individual people have a moral right to just treatment and agencies and agents of the state have a moral duty to give it. If, say, a particular married man is unjustly treated by the Inland Revenue and pays too much in tax, it would not serve to erase the injustice by charging some other married man too little. This would create a further injustice.

There is now a legal obligation on public-sector organisations to promote what is called "equality of opportunity" between men and women and, in so doing, to take into account the different needs of the males and females they employ and offer services to.

It seems, however, what is meant is equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Tessa Jowell, with reference to the GED in an official pamphlet, says: "This government is committed to achieving real equality of opportunity for everyone regardless of their sex."

We should be wary when politicians talk in this way. There are various senses in which something can be the same as, that is, equal to, something else. No equality is more "real" than any other.

She goes on to say: "We want this duty to succeed. We also want to focus on outcomes rather than processes. Our goal is to ensure that gender equality between men and women becomes a reality."

What is most chilling is what is said about processes. In a sense, justice is all about processes and principles. If the process is just then one should accept the outcome, whatever it is.

There is a danger that political dogmas, "visions" and "values" will clash with ethical principles or, even worse, be mistaken for them. Whether gender equality is a good or a bad thing will depend on how and why it comes about. Gender equality as such (like all equality as such) is not an ethical ideal.

For instance, consider some Scottish "gender inequalities". Women live longer than men. Men earn more than women. Men commit more murders than women. The majority of Scottish prisoners and majority of MSPs are male.

These inequalities are not necessarily unjust or the results of injustices. The world would not necessarily be a better place if they were to be removed. It would depend how and why they were removed. Processes and principles matter.

If, for instance, more women start and more men stop smoking, life expectancy for men and women will become more equal but that would hardly be an improvement of any sort. It would bear no relation to justice or injustice. If the courts started to send women to jail for committing offences for which men were merely fined, then we might have something like gender equality in prisons. This would, of course, be unjust. It would be different treatment on the basis of irrelevant differences.

In various circumstances, one could try to produce gender equality only by treating individual men and women unjustly. Often, in order to try to produce equality of outcomes, one would need to offer unequal opportunities to different people. Apart from anything else, not all those who have equal opportunities want them equally or take advantage of them equally.

For instance, if one is gender-blind in one's recruitment policies and procedures, how can one meet a target of an equal number of male and female employees? There will at least be a temptation to act unjustly.

When public-sector bodies are explicitly gender-vigilant, how can they avoid the suspicion they might be failing to treat individual people impartially as people?