Journal 4

I don’t think the concept of “equity” was ever taught to me specifically. It is simply something that I realized and understood over time from my social surroundings, school, and social media. The word “equality” often came up when I was growing up instead. In Singapore, we are asked to memorize the Singapore pledge and recite it every morning in school. The pledge has the phrase “…to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality…”. I was always taught to strive for equality, and “equity” was never really part of my vocabulary. As I grew older, the words “equity” and “equality” felt interchangeable, and I believe that I also used them quite interchangeably as well in my vocabulary. I never really understood the fundamental differences between these two concepts before taking this class.

The photo showing the three kids watching the baseball game that demonstrates the difference between “equality” and “equity” in the human rights framework really struck me. I never really understood it at first, but the photo made me think more about how the systems and structures are in place and embedded in our society today. Equity is something that is even harder to achieve than equality, because it means that we have to look at those who are disadvantaged because of systems in place and help them work towards equal outcomes to those who are more privileged. The queer lens of dismantling these systems is even more interesting to me because it enforces the idea of fighting against the oppressive structures and dismantling dominant culture that is oppressive.

This section made me think a lot about a law that was recently passed in Singapore just last week that legalized gay sex, effectively making it legal to be homosexual in the country. Before that, there was a law specifically in Singapore than banned it. When I first heard about this news, I thought it was a good step that our country was making because Singapore has always been a very conservative city state. However the more I thought about it, the more I questioned myself on how I felt about it. This was before I watched Gretchen’s video today. I found myself wondering why it is, that Singapore had to go through everything to repeal the original law. What is it that makes homosexual people the “other” people that need to be treated as exceptions in comparison to heterosexual people?

Watching Gretchen’s video today made me think about it even more. In the video, Gretchen said something that is still running in my mind currently. She said, “Challenge with using the dominant narrative to claim power is that often that dominant narrative unintentionally reinforces other systems of oppression in some way. By arguing that queer folks have equal rights to get married because they were born that way, we are reinforcing marriage as an institution that confers power to particular folks in particular ways. Rather than challenging or questioning that institution, we are simply adding an “exception” to that rule. It reinforces idea of who should have the rights to certain things.”

Her analysis brought a lot of clarity to me and I can now kind of see why I felt so uncomfortable and grappled a lot with the thought of the law being repealed in Singapore. While it seems like Singapore is making a step towards progressive movements, they are still using, as in Gretchen’s words, “the dominant narrative” to help people claim power. This inherently still gives power to the dominant culture and continues to add to the oppressive structures that we have in place.

I learnt a lot from this section of the course, and I am now thinking more about how equity comes into play with our education systems. I think that it is important to think about how even if we think we are making a progressive step towards helping people, we should also think about how that can impact other identities and groups of people.