Equal Opportunities Work - Theories about Practice

There has long been strong emphasis on education, preferably in
technology or the natural sciences, in order to fulfill the needs of trade
and industry. Substantial resources have also been invested in
persuading girls and young women to make "non-traditional" choices
in terms of what they would study. such campaigns have been
described as a way of promoting equal opportunities. At the same
time, a large number of other areas of competence in which women
have traditionally been dominant, have ceased to be considered
important enough to be worth studying. Nor have there been nearly as
many drives to encourage young men to make non-traditional
choices.8
Thus it becomes clear that working for a utopian kind of equal opportunities
means touching on fundamental organizational changes, focusing on new, nontraditional
norns and patterns evolving from the experience and conditions of
life of both women and men.
This requires fundamental change, not just increasing the numbers of the
underrepresented sex in any existing organization or the value of female ideas
in a structure defined by men, or enabling the underrepresented sex to more
easily be promoted to high positions in an existing organization.
who benefits from efforts to improve equality of opportunity? The
underrepresented sex? Everyone in an organization? Although there is no
question that a majority of the underrepresented sex, the sex that may be
subject to harassment or discrimination, is in favor of such work, there are
strong arguments for the idea that equal opportunities work can benefit
everyone working at an organization. Seen in this way, equal opportunities
work is one aspect of change, contributing to making new, different
organizations that are better for both women and men.
4. Equal opportunities work as a matter of quality
What arguments can be put forward for equal opportunities? Various kinds of
quality arguments are often used in this context, so let us examine them. They
give rise to the following type of questions:'Does the assertion hold water that
working for equal opportunities is one aspect of quality development at a
university? Can efforts to achieve equality of collaboration between women and
men really improve the quality of the work carried out at an organization? After
8 Gunne.ud, E., & Werners son, Vad lever vi fi)r? Om jcimstciltdhet som frihet eller ndng,SOU (Swedish
Government Commission Report 1997:158, p. 106 What are We Living for? On Equal Opportunities as Freedom
or Coercion")