"Equal rights aren't pie" 🗣️

Insights and questions on why some people fear equity initiatives, and two things we all can do to fix systemic biases to improve equity. (Audio: 16:30)

Karen Smiley

Jul 25, 2024

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Pie and Zero-Sum Games

My friend Stella Fosse recently reposted her 2020 article “Dare to Dream Madam Vice President”, and this quote particularly resonated with me.

“Our country has been divided, not just these past four years, but since its inception. It has been divided by the belief in a zero-sum game: that whatever gains are made by women, or people of color, or people with disabilities, or people who love the same gender, that those gains are made at the expense of someone else. That one person’s ability to marry somehow threatens another person’s marriage. That one person’s access to education somehow limits another person’s ability to learn. None of this is real.”

DEI advocates often counter this view of life as a zero-sum game by saying:

“Equal rights for others does not mean less rights for you. It’s not pie.”

Photo of a basket of apples and 2 loose apples on a wooden table with a baked, lattice-topped apple pie — Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

There’s also pushback on that idea, asserting that it IS pie; that others gaining more rights to resources will take away from others when resources are constrained. This fear of losing, of life being a “zero-sum game”, shows up over and over in equity discussions and the DEI space. Why?

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Inequality and Inequity

For a more in-depth discussion of the differences between equality and equity, see this July 23 article on “Baseball, Bicycles, and Crosswalks”. (The differences aren’t important for this article, so don’t let terminology derail you.)

Photo from IRPP.org - used under CC BY-ND

Many cartoons on gender inequality show a man and a woman at the starting line of a racetrack.

Cartoon Variation 1

In one viral variation of the cartoon (this post on ICLD.se 1 is one example):

The man’s track has two small hurdles. They are low, spaced apart, and do not span his whole lane. He could easily jump them (even in his suit), or just go around.
The woman’s track shows land mines, barbed wire, an alligator, part of a tall stone wall, and spikes. And she has a big weighted ball chained to her right ankle.
The cartoon caption shows the man saying to the woman, “What’s the matter? It’s the same distance.”

The obvious point is that the woman faces far more barriers than the man. Their tracks are not equitable or fair. And pretending they are is ridiculous.

Cartoon Variation 2

A variation by Peruvian political cartoonist Carlin titled “Meritocracia” shows 3 women and 3 men. The men’s tracks have no obstacles and the women’s tracks have many, mostly related to household work. It went viral in Feb. 2019 when shared by billionaire Anand Mahindra. (←- Click that link to see the cartoon.)

This Upworthy post 2 describes the cartoon: “It depicts three men and three women positioned at the starting line of a track that presents a clear path to the finish line for only one gender. While the women are blocked by a never-ending pile of housework, including laundry, cooking and ironing, the men are presented with a path that's completely unobstructed. And just to make things harder for the women, they are dressed skirts and heels in contrast to the suits and comfortable shoes worn by men.”

The Upworthy article also includes a version of the cartoon marked up by a man to add obstacles (in text boxes) to the men’s paths. This reflects backlash and a sense of resentment that life isn’t easy for men, either.

But no one’s claiming it IS easy for men, in absolute terms. The point is that men’s gender isn’t making things even harder for them. Not being of male gender does make it harder.
It’s similar to talking about ‘white privilege’. Yes, many white people like me face challenges too, but my skin color hasn’t made my life even harder.

Cartoon Variation 3

A cartoon I saw the other day (but didn’t save, unfortunately) showed three panels on this topic.

The first panel shows a man and a woman at the starting line of a race track, where the woman’s lane shows obstacles and the man’s doesn’t. It’s captioned “What Women Face”.
The second panel shows the man at the lane with the obstacles and the woman at the lane without obstacles. It’s captioned “What Men Fear”.
The third panel shows both the man and the woman at lanes with no obstacles. It’s captioned “What DEI Is”.

The key insight is that the second panel ISN’T at all what women or advocates for equity want. The goal isn’t to create more obstacles for anyone. Equity advocates want to remove systemic obstacles for the benefit of everyone.

If you’ve felt that same fear about equity initiatives, ask yourself:
what is it you’re afraid of?

But Aren’t We Past Sexism and Racism By Now?

No. We’re absolutely not.

Stella’s article, which I quoted at the start of this post, is about US VP Kamala Harris. As an American woman with ancestors from Jamaica and India, she has deep personal experience with intersectional biases and inequities. VP Harris has clearly succeeded in spite of the many barriers she has faced in her life.

Yet, in some ways, Harris is the “exception that proves the rule”. Gender bias is far from gone in this country, and in some ways, it’s gotten worse lately.
And setting aside her gender for the moment, racist bias is deep-rooted and still pervasive in the US. If anyone somehow thinks that people of color in this country are blessed with open lanes with no obstacles, they are not living in reality.

Some examples:

The list of unarmed Black people killed by US law enforcement officers is appallingly long - and incomplete. The latest known example as of July 25, 2024 is Sonya Massey’s murder on July 6. Black people in the US are not safe even in their homes, even when they have called for help. Yes, the policeman who shot Massey has been dismissed and charged with murder, and that’s good; but that’s not good enough. She should be alive.
Discrimination against Asian Americans in the US is long-standing and even escalated during the COVID-19 pandemic, inflamed by racist rhetoric. A 2023 study found that “32% of Asian adults say they know another Asian person in the U.S. who has been threatened or attacked because of their race or ethnicity since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.” And 9 out of 10 Asian Americans personally experienced at least one of the 17 discrimination incidents in the survey. (It wasn’t an exhaustive list.)
Hispanic people are hardly exempt from bias and inequity in the US. Discrimination against them in the US dates back to the 1840s, and hate crimes against Hispanics have spiked in recent years. On the job front, as noted in this LinkedIn article about 4 barriers Hispanic workers face, Jenn Tardy quotes the Center for American Progress as asserting that “systemic factors continue to prevent Hispanics from achieving equal employment outcomes to Whites.”
This Health Services Research report confirms that indigenous peoples in the US experience greater bias than whites in health care and other domains for over 500 years. And it’s still a problem. “In adjusted models, Native Americans had higher odds than whites of reporting discrimination across several domains, including health care and interactions with the police/courts.” (See the report for more details.)

All of this (waves hands) has to stop.

Trading Places and the Golden Rule

Educator Jane Elliott is famous for her blue-eyes / brown-eyes experiment with students 3. She is also well-known for her seminar question to a mixed-race audience. “She asks “How many of you white folks would trade places with a black person today?” And she waits. The only sound is that of the people of color in the room turning in their chairs to see if anyone will raise their hand. She continues to wait and not a single white person raises their hand. She says, “You know what you just admitted? That this is happening, and you don’t want it for you. So why are you so willing for it to be the case for someone else?”” 4

I have a feeling that the raised hands would be similarly missing if cis men were asked if they would trade places and be a woman.

People who know that others are already being treated badly, and don’t want to be treated badly themselves, fear the possibility of ‘trading places’. Perhaps they don’t want any more competition for the pie that they believe to be limited. The real question, as Jane Elliott asks, is: If we don't want it for ourselves, why are we so willing for it to be the case for someone else?

If we wouldn’t want to be impeded or underpaid in our careers, why are we ok with others being impeded or underpaid?
If we wouldn’t want ourselves or our family members to be at greater risk of dying or being killed because of our skin color or gender status, why are we ok with others bearing those risks?
If we wouldn’t want to be prevented from marrying who we chose (or not marrying), or divorcing, or bearing children or not, why are we ok with others being blocked from having those choices?
etc.

What exactly do we fear we are losing by others having the same rights to earn a living and make these choices for themselves?
On what basis could we believe that those potential losses to us OUTWEIGH their rights to the same autonomy we enjoy?

Every major religious tradition - and some non-religious ethical traditions - support some form of the “Golden Rule”: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. This includes Baha’i Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Taoism, and Wicca.

Table mapping 10 major religions and belief systems to the “Golden Rule”. Source: Wikimedia. Licensed under CC0 (public domain).

If we consider ourselves adherents of any of those 10 traditions, and we wouldn’t want some thing to happen to us, how can any of us rationalize being willing for it to happen to someone else?

What We Can Do

The bad news: All of these problems with inequity are largely systemic.
The good news: WE are the system, and WE have the power to fix it.

When I talk about the “system” that needs barriers and biases removed, I’m not referring only to biased computer systems, hardware, firmware, software, or AI algorithms. I’m talking about us and our “wetware” (brains).

We, the people of the world, collectively ARE “the system”. Our bodies and brains drive the social systems in our communities, and create the physical and virtual systems we all use.

We, the people, design and build computer systems and software.
We, the people, select data and train & design AI algorithms.
We, the people, design crosswalks, fences, bicycles and other transportation, educational courses, and so much more.
We, the people, define laws, policies, and processes, and we make decisions.
We, the people, write, speak, and take actions (or don’t).

We ARE the system. And WE can & must own fixing it, together.

How To Move Forward

Here are two things each of us can do.

Action 1. No matter where we live or work, we all have work to do. We all grow up with biases we don’t even know we have. We’re like fish swimming in the ocean, and we don’t see the water. Learning to see is the first step.

The sooner more of us can come to terms with the answers to these questions about fears, and reconcile our belief traditions with moving towards equity, the faster our progress will be towards a fairer world without obstacles for all.

Yes, these biases are systemic. They’ve persisted for centuries and aren’t rooted out yet. But we ARE the system, and there is no excuse for not working on these biases and making progress.

“I am only one, but I am one. I can't do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.” (Edward Everett Hale, 1902)

Action 2. We need to focus on electing (and holding accountable) officials who have the power to prioritize equity for all in the systems they influence. I wrote about this on March 30 with regard to ageism (including gendered ageism and misogynoir). It’s even more critical now. For those of us in the USA, it’s one of the reasons this upcoming election feels so monumental. This 2024 election is our opportunity to elect leaders at all levels who believe in equity & will prioritize it.

Consider VP Harris as an example. While her record is not perfect, she has already spoken up and walked the talk to remove barriers, and not just for other women or people of color. From her 2020 acceptance speech as VP-elect (quoted in Stella’s article):

“While I may be the first woman in this office, I won’t be the last. … And to the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message: Dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourself in a way that others might not see you, simply because they’ve never seen it before. And we will applaud you every step of the way. Now is when the real work begins. The hard work. The necessary work. The good work. … To rebuild our economy so it works for working people. To root out systemic racism in our justice system and society. To combat the climate crisis. To unite our country and heal the soul of our nation. The road ahead will not be easy. But America is ready.”

VP Harris was and is right that we need the real work, the hard work, the necessary work, the good work. (Applause is great, but it’s not enough.) We need to reverse the damage that’s already been done to civil, voting, marriage, and healthcare rights in recent years. We need to solidify our rights so they can’t be jeopardized again by fearful people who believe that life is a zero-sum game. It’s time to focus on tearing down systemic barriers, rebuilding & improving, to have true liberty and justice for ALL.

To achieve this, we need leaders up and down and across our country at all levels who care about removing systemic barriers and who will pitch in to ‘make it so’. Harris’s platform isn’t set yet, but her positions appear likely to be stronger on equity than Biden’s. And her speeches and actions to date support hope that she will prioritize equity as President.

NOW is the time, before the convention (Aug. 19-22), to speak up about making equity a priority in her platform! (And keep speaking up and acting.)

Like planting a tree and so many other things, the best time to push together for equity was 20 years ago, and the next best time is now. I believe America IS more ready today than ever before. LFG.