Substantive equality

Issues about substantive equality have been raised about the skin color of runway models at the São Paulo Fashion Week and in 2009 quotas requiring that at least 10 percent of models be "black or indigenous" were imposed as a substantive way to counteract a "bias towards white models", according to one account.[1]

Substantive equality is a substantive law on human rights that is concerned with equality of outcome for disadvantaged and marginalized people and groups and generally all subgroups in society.[2][3] Scholars define substantive equality as an output or outcome of the policies, procedures, and practices used by nation states and private actors in addressing and preventing systemic discrimination.[4][3][5]

Substantive equality recognizes that the law must take elements such as discrimination, marginalization, and unequal distribution into account in order to achieve equal results for basic human rights, and access to goods and services.[3] Substantive equality is primarily achieved by implementing special measures[6] in order to assist or advance the lives of disadvantaged individuals. Such measures are aimed at ensuring that they are given the same outcomes as everyone else.[2]

Substantive equality is distinct from formal equal opportunity, which ensures equal opportunity based on meritocracy, but not equal outcomes for subgroups.[7]

Substantive equality can include affirmative action and quota systems including gender quotas and racial quotas.

  1. ^ "Brazil fashion week goes equal opportunity". The Daily Telegraph. June 20, 2009. Retrieved 2011-09-08.
  2. ^ a b Cusack, Simone; Ball, Rachel (July 2009). Eliminating Discrimination and Ensuring Substantive Equality (PDF) (Report). Public Interest Law Clearing House and Human Rights Law Resource Centre Ltd. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-06-06.
  3. ^ a b c "What is substantive equality?" (PDF). Equal Opportunity Commission, Government of Western Australia. November 2014. Retrieved 28 October 2018.
  4. ^ "systematic discrimination". Archived from the original on 2019-01-19. Retrieved 2018-11-20.
  5. ^ Mitchell, Ben (2015). Process Equality, Substantive Equality and Recognising Disadvantage Constitutional Equality Law. Irish Jurist. 53: 36-57.
  6. ^ special measures
  7. ^ De Vos, Marc (2020). "The European Court of Justice and the march towards substantive equality in European Union anti-discrimination law". International Journal of Discrimination and the Law. 20 (1): 62–87. doi:10.1177/1358229120927947.