Equality v. Inequality

Yesterday I was reading Muslimah Media Watch (a blog dedicated to keeping track of how Muslim women are portrayed in the media with more than 20 contributors) and in this blog post Krista made a distinction that I think deserves a lot more attention. She wrote in reference to Bill 94 (a bill currently proposed in the province of Quebec, Canada to ban the niqab in any place of public service):

One issue that came up...was the difference between formal equality (everyone being treated in exactly the same way) and substantive equality (a more equity-focused concept, in which it is recognized that identical treatment doesn’t necessarily have egalitarian results). The argument here is that, while Bill 94 claims to treat everyone equally by requiring all people to show their faces, the result will have disproportionately negative effects on women for whom showing their faces in certain situations is just not an option; Bill 94, in other words, represents formal equality but will result in substantive inequality.

So, what is equality? If Bill 94 is passed, and it will not be the first of it it's kind if it is. It will not have an effect on everyone. When it comes down to it, it will only have an effect, a negative effect, on the small sect of the population that wears the niqab. That is, both mathematically and morally, the bill is unequal. If every single person wore the niqab, and it was banned, only then would this bill be substantively equal. However, only then would there be more of an outcry, if only because there would be numbers behind the plea.

This episode begs the question, can the government make every law they pass equal in its effects? Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. teaches us that it cannot. If everyone is brought down to the same level, we could be all equal (and affected equally by every law), but then the beauty of the human race would be lost. People are born unequal. That is how the world works.

However, coming back to Bill 94, how close can we get to equality before we cross over the line and make the world more unequal, even if it is only for a select few? Considering the differences between ' formal equally' (in its most extreme version in Harrison Bergeron) and 'substantive equality' must be a requirement. Equality is a word that is thrown around a lot, but true equality would be the kind where everyone was affected the same way. Those who proposed Bill 94 do not (I hope) have any hatred for people who wear that niqab, but I think policy makers have to be aware that they can easily be pulled into the recent wave of Islamaphobia and to remember that fear does not give grounds to effectively deny any human being their rights. I do not wear a niqab, and I do not know anyone personally who does, but still I am offended by this regression to inequality among people who live in the same neighborhood. I hope that the supporters of Bill 94, and other bills like it, stop to think about how to balance safety concern with equality.