Reading Jane Eyre (and hearing about Tess/reading certain parts of Tess) has really gotten me thinking again about equality. Throughout the beginning of the book, Jane is treated as unequal because she is not the specific kind of person that people want her to be. She is punished harshly, she is put into a horrible school (at least, horrible in the beginning) and then treated poorly there. She is treated unequally for being younger, for being female, for being poor, for being an orphan. She isn't given things which we as people now deem basic human rights and necessities. She later thinks of herself as unequal, she refuses to act like she is on the same playing field as the Eshtons or Mr. Rochester.
It's a bit sad, honestly, how people used to be treated. What's sadder is that it's still not entirely fixed. We still have a lot of societal mindsets that lead to discrimination. Many rich look down upon the poor, many races look down upon others. Many women are chastised for questioning their positions in society. I like to believe that mankind is inherently good and just misguided. Maybe over time, we will solve the whole problem. But nothing will ever be perfectly equal. There will always be rich and there will always be poor. There will always be young and old and black and white. There will always be people who believe God created the woman from the man and thus women must conform. However, I think that realization of the world's imperfections should lead us to further understanding the problem. It's about changing one person's opinion at a time, because swaying a whole society is impossible.
Equality is fundamental to society. We have universalizable statements such as "murder is wrong" because we believe all people equally deserve the right to life. When we fail to believe in the equality of all people, statements like this are false, because it then becomes okay to kill certain groups and people. We say that slavery is bad because we believe all people have the right to liberty. When some people are not equal, this statement doesn't matter because it is okay to enslave certain people who lack equality. Thus, equality is essential to morality and is necessary for laws to be fair and therefore necessary for society to function.
People should question more, like Jane does. People should talk more, and understand more. The very standards we base our lives off of do not matter when we discriminate against anyone or anything.
