Essay

1. Fernanda Ixchel Garcia Ortiz Videos & Readings
A01371023 October 8th, 2015
Viviana Toledo
Gender discrimination vs. Equity
Listening to couple of beliefs I realized that the most popular ideas and hopes for, I don’t
know if it is because is what society expects you to stand for or because they really want it
that way, are for stopping gender discrimination and having an equity society. Regardless,
my opinion states that it is not really possible to carry out both but we can balance it.
Gender discrimination refers to behave towards someone differently and unfavorably just
because of that person’s sex. On the other side, equity is defined as the quality of being fair
or impartial, it is similar to justice, so it means you are treated fairly according to your
needs, capabilities, etc. After knowing the difference between both terms we can assume
that it is not accurate to stop gender discrimination if we want equity because you need to
have a different treatment and do different tasks to create an equitable environment since
physically and even female and male brains are wired differently. I might mention that this
does not mean that women are less capable than men nor the other way around, it just
means we have different abilities, we are not the best in everything but we are better at
some tasks.
Recently I have heard some cases of gender pay gap, which means that according to your
gender, in this case women are damaged, you get less earning than the other sex having the
same responsibilities. A study made by Forbes shows that women receive just 77% of men
earnings. I don’t know the exact reason why this is happening but from what I have heard is

2. because administrators, bosses or whoever is in charge of taking decisions believe women
are less capable. I am sure this is just an old-fashioned stereotype because nowadays there
are a lot of woman that have succeeded and according to a study made by the University of
Pennsylvania women now have higher IQs than men.
Those statements lead to what I believe is the best: having an equitable society in which
being a women does not make it harder to succeed, I consider there are some alternatives
that would be a reasonable and accurate as making you responsible for other tasks if you,
because of your gender abilities, cannot accomplish the other ones. I know changing
someone’s point of view and mind is really hard, especially when they are grown-ups but
we can start creating and inducing this mentality to the new generations, it is more a matter
of education.
The Awful Truth Behind The Gender Pay Gap. (n.d.). Retrieved October 7, 2015, from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswomanfiles/2014/04/07/the-awful-truth-of-the-gender-
pay-gap-it-gets-worse-as-women-age/
Men versus women: Who's best in the battle of the sexes? (2013, December 3). Retrieved
October 7, 2015, from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/science/men-
versus-women-whos-best-2880581
Equity. (n.d.). Retrieved October 7, 2015, from
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/equity
Difference Between Equity and Equality | Difference Between | Equity vs Equality. (n.d.).
Retrieved October 7, 2015, from http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-
between-equity-and-equality/
Sex-Based Discrimination. (n.d.). Retrieved October 7, 2015, from
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm