Equality
“the quality of being fair and impartial”
When I think of the word equality I’m reminded of this story I read years ago. It goes like this…
One piece of chocolate cake was left over. Two kids wanted it. The grown-up jumps in saying: “I’ll just cut it in half. That would be the fair thing to do.” Both kids exclaimed: “No!” Neither of them wanted half. Confused the grown-up asked “what do you want me to do? I can’t just let one of you have it, leaving nothing for the other.” Then one of the kids explains: “I would prefer to have the icing and filling.” Then the other one said: “I would prefer to eat just the cake.” The grown-up replied: “Ah…well that is something I _can_ do”. Both kids enjoyed their version of the cake and they lived happily ever after…at least for a few minutes anyway.
As a 70yo woman, I’ve seen plenty of unfairness around my gender. It began early with being raised in the Catholic Church. My first sign of unfairness was learning that only men could be priests, that only men could be in charge. What?!?!?
In my own childhood home, I saw that my brothers never had to do any chores around the house (cooking, dishes, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, and so on). Yes, they had to do outside chores but those were more like weekly chores versus the every-day chores that I had to do.
Then in the mid-late 80s I was one of about 5 women software engineers out of 60+. I saw plenty of unfairness because of being a female. I’ll spare you the disgusting details.
Since it would be almost impossible for one person the change the inequalities of our society, we can, however, practice fairness and impartiality in our own personal lives, letting it grow outward into the world by example.
Essentially when it comes to equality…we need more fairness and impartiality…creating win-win situations as much as possible. However, our challenge becomes determining what defines equality in any given situation, how is it defined, and who has a say in it. To be fair…ideally, all parties affected by it should have a say in it.
All that being said, I’m reminded of how “people” keep saying “life isn’t fair” or “who says life has to be fair?” or “all’s fair in love and war”…._Who_ are these people??? While things might not seem fair all the time, we can certainly strive to make it so. Right, Captain Picard?
How about you? Is equality a core value for you?
BTW…here’s what it looked like to begin with…
joyfully,
Maureen
The Mandala Lady
inspiring and encouraging creativity, curiosity, and play through the art of mandalas
About the 2024 Mandalas of the Day
Each day I will create and post a mandala inspired by one of 366 “value” words chosen randomly. The objective being to discover for myself which ones would best represent my core values…and by doing so, I hope it inspires you to determine your own.
Mandala of the Day 