Gender Equity and Gender equality are both miles apart when it comes to giving an individual opportunity to learn and grow in a competitive environment. The certain benefits of gender equity make a lot of difference and should be implemented at workplace.
The fundamental difference between Gender Equality and Gender Equity.
A non-biased approach towards any gender is considered as gender equality. Whereas giving opportunity to any individual based on his or her requirement irrespective of gender is said to be gender equality. Considering every gender equal in the policy. Eg if its recruitment policy or performance evaluation policy is about gender equality whereas providing support to employees based on gender comes under gender equity.
For example, considering women’s menstrual leave and giving them right for paid leaves during menstrual period is a part of gender equity. Another example is provision of maternity leave for women employees. Provision of paternal leave for male employees comes under the gambit of equality. Giving equal opportunities to both men and women for recruitment and appraisals is a part of equality. Considering a person suitable for promotion irrespective of their gender also falls under equality.
Why Gender Equity is a must?
- Gender Equity brings confidence among workforce on individual basis
Gender equity helps the downtrodden to become a part of mainstream. It helps women feel a part of the organization and to retain them in the long run. It brings confidence among employees as they get support from the organization and can compete in the competitive environment.
- Everyone is given right to grow in professional life as per their needs and understanding.
Based on the learning needs of individual, everyone seeks to learn more and maximize their potential. There is where an individual looks at gender equity and get the advantage of flexible choices where s/he can get the best as per his needs and choice. For example, a company with 500 employees makes it mandatory to choose courses from any e-learning platform based on their background or position and can enhance or polish their skills of their choice and not making it mandatory for everyone to learn software of specific kind or make it compulsion for everyone to learn project management irrespective of an individual is from finance department, coding, or quality check department.
- Individual’s need is satisfied with an unbiased approach.
Most of the time, when any need of an individual is not met as they are not part of the majority women employees might feel demoralized as their needs can be very specific based on their current situation. For example, anyone is demanding to work from home due to his travelling time consumes 2 hours of his day whereas other individual asking for work from home because s/he is on bed rest due to some medical emergency is different. So, considering equity over equality matters.
Thus, gender equity sets the stage for gender equality. Gender equity refers to providing the right environment and support as per specific needs of each gender. Equality refers to providing an equitable environment where people are not discriminated based on their gender.