all things being equal

Ceteris paribus – ‘all things being equal’ – is a concept at the heart of the scientific method. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the phrase as ‘with other conditions remaining the same; other things being equal.’ It is used in scientific enquiry to describe a prediction or statement about a causal, empirical, or logical relationship between two states, removing factors that get in the way of focusing on that relationship. So, for example, ceteris paribus, #AllLivesMatter.

Economics, the dominant discipline of the post neoliberal reform era, has widely incorporated the notion of ‘all things being equal’ to simplify the formulation and description of economic outcomes, allowing for all other variables – apart from the variables under evaluation – to be held constant. In this manner one might be able to state that the evidence shows women are choosing not to engage with STEM disciplines, men are choosing higher paid jobs, Māori students are choosing non-NCEA unit standards.

The concept of ‘all things being equal’ is an analytical tool that has permeated the landscape – because, from the perspective of those with power, most of the time, all things appear equal. Last week I asked a senior colleague a question during a question and answer session about processes to ensure diversity in the recruitment of a cohort of early career scientists and policy professionals. We were told that ‘you guys just need to relax.’ From the perspective of seniority and power within the science system in New Zealand, all things are equal, and a process will, without bias, produce the kind of diverse cohort that reflects the population of New Zealand.

Except, of course, all things are not. That every single young Māori man from the First XV at the local private school is now doing an apprenticeship might well be those lads’ choice, but it is a choice made within the context of systemic bias within the education system. Women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and maths, and this might be because they’re making the best decisions for themselves, based on the evidence in front of them, but again, systemic unconscious biases are now well-documented, as are the impacts of stereotype threat. Jobs and fields that are male-dominated might be better paid because they are harder, or more dangerous, but the shift from female-dominated (and low value) to male-dominated (and high value) for computing provides insight into the ways in which bias, stereotype, and commercial practises changed the perception of a field. Many of the typically female-dominated roles, which tend to be lower paid, are those that can be classified as requiring emotional labour or care.

A former colleague, an economist of colour, reminded me of the prevalence of ‘all things being equal’ when I asked him about the tonelessness of an economics working paper that made causal connections between economic outcomes for Māori and Māori values and beliefs, as well as using Black American values and beliefs as a comparator with indigenous Māori ones.

“prior research indicates that a person who believes the world is not ‘just’, in the sense of believing that success is due to luck and connections rather than individual effort, may not be motivated to seek educational achievements, nor see the point of working hard at a job”

A succinct summary of privilege. All things not being equal, those of us, who through our lack of access to that privilege, can see more clearly the absence of justice in the world know that so much of what those with power call individual effort or hard work is in fact, luck.

Sometimes this becomes writ large, this gap between the perception of those for whom all things are often pretty much equal, and those for whom the inequality of the world we live in, the societies that surround us, is clearly seen.

When 400 years of Black reality – slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, police brutality – is pushed back against with the all things being equal hashtag #AllLivesMatter; when tikanga Māori solutions to health problems that overwhelmingly effect Māori families are denied funding – read Olivia Carville’s excellent investigative piece, Funding for safe-sleep bassinets secretly shelved by Government; when concerns around diversity and representation in science and academia are dismissed as ‘fixating on trivial matters’; when we’re all being told to ‘relax’, to not be angry, to wait, to not protest.

Now, more than ever, is the time to clearly, assertively state that all things are NOT equal, that we need to articulate #BlackLivesMatter because the overwhelming evidence before our eyes is that society doesn’t think they do. That denying funding to a culturally-appropriate and expert-approved health measure is rightly called systemic racism; that now is NOT the time to relax. It is the time to speak, to listen, to support, to organise, to activate.