Equal Opportunities Work - Theories about Practice

and promoting a critical stance. Quite simply, equality of opportunities gives
rise to a creative climate, and one that encourages learning. Equality of
opportunities also has a pedagogical dimension. Good teaching is teaching that
is able to integrate new experience, and add new knowledge to the existing
worldview. For this reason, it is vital for the students to be able to relate what
they are being taught to themselves and their own experience. And for this to
be possible, the experience of both sexes must somehow be present in the
teaching situation.
Another quality-related argument is referred to as the "argument for the
talent repository". Work with equal opportunities generates additional qualityraising
features in that it means additional competence. If both sexes a.re
permitted to work and operate on equal terms in the organization, it draws on
the talent repository of the underrepresented sex that remains latent in
organizations where equal opportunities do not prevail. Thus the quality level
of the knowledge process is raised. If everyone involved in a creative process
is aware of the perspective of both sexes, the quality of the process improves.
Moreover, more individuals in the organization will be acknowledged as
possessing useful talents.
5. Equal opportunities, quality and the male norm
It is necessary to justify equal opportunities work in other ways than in relation
to justice, because privileged groups tend to obstruct redistribution or reequilibration
of power.
Seeing work for equal opportunities as a process that improves the quality of
research and education provides utility arguments for such work being
important and being a matter relevant to all the members of an organization. In
other words, achieving equality between women and men is not only desirable
for the underrepresented sex, the sex that is being infringed upon or
discriminated against. It is not in the interest of any specific group, but in the
interest of all. We would like to believe that true equality of opportunity is of
benefit to all, for instance in that it improves the atmosphere at the workplace,
and makes it both more creative and more dvnamic. l0
l0 Equul opportunities are a matter ofboth give and take. A society characterized by equal opportunities
assumes that both women and men are prepared to refrain from power and privilege. For instance, women will
have to divest themselves of power in the home so that men can take their share, and men will have to be
prepared to refrain from some power and influence in both working life and politics so that women can take their
share: In these two cases, however, the kinds ofpower in question are different and cannot immediately be
compared.
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