Conclusion

Abstract

We have seen that women’s equality and pronatalism are terms that cover a broad spectrum of ideas and practices. Women’s equality can be defined as formal equality of opportunity or as substantive equality of outcome. The egalitarian standard against which persons are to be measured can entail equal, differential or pluralistic treatment. Women’s equality can take the form of assimilation (women becoming like men), androgyny (enlargement of the common ground on which women and men share their lives together) or maternal feminism that rests on the complementarity of sex differences and the special moral qualities and needs of women. During the last two decades, women’s equality moved from being a radical demand of feminists and socialists to a legitimate issue on the economic and social policy agendas of various levels of the state, major international organisations, private business corporations, and trade unions. The traditional liberal notions of equal rights and treatment, and absolute equality of opportunity, have given way to a much broader definition of relative equality of opportunity, which recognises indirect and systemic discrimination.