EQUALITY
What does it mean?
Equality = "the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities"
Many people misconstrue the meaning of equality and create their own definitions of the word. Because of this, we live in a society with a lot of misunderstanding and different beliefs in what equality really is and how it can be achieved; this confusion and misinterpretation makes it a contested term.
The word "equality" is derivative of latin words for equality and has been used across time and cultures:
German = "Gleichheit" literally meaning "sameness"
French = "égalité"
Spanish = "igualdad"
It appears that all languages with Latinate origins have similar roots and therefore similar words for "equality" but the meanings are the same.
It appears that these three words (equality, discrimination and feminism) cannot be fully discussed individually: they all intersect and it is difficult to separate them. However this can also be beneficial because talking about all three concepts can be helpful in establishing our own definitions of the words and understanding the terms in a new way.
The word "equality" is thought to have been first used between 1350 and 1400 (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/equality?s=t).
The graph below shows the use of the word "equality" between 1500 and 2008.
Definitions of equality from urbandictionary.com
This bar graph shows the number of people considering themselves feminists before and after a definition of feminism was given to them. Significantly more people classified themselves as feminists after the word was broken down and explained to them; we can guess that the word "equality" was involved in this redefinition, since this term is usually always involved in defining advocate movements and this demonstrates the idea that "equality" is friendlier than a labelled movement.
