The Search for Equality

As mentioned in the title, equality is what connects "Saudis in Bikinis" to "The Tyranny of the Majority". Both articles display situations where there are two extremes, one or the other, and both articles show a search for a balance between the extremes.

Guinier's article is about searching for the equality between two extremes such as trying to reach a consensus without excluding a group's opinion. For example she mentions a dilemma that occured at a highschool between two races. The highschool was taking a poll on song choices for the prom, but the poll was unfair due to the majority of the population being white. If the african american students preferred different music to be played, well it would not happen. Thus there became two seperate proms instead. This is an example of two extremes ( two different proms) not being able to find equality ( a fair polling system so there could be one prom). She then mentions the concept of taking turns, so both parties will not be excluded, whether it be at a prom or the democratic voting system.

Kristof also shows two extremes that are finding it hard to reach some sort of equality. When he visited Saudi Arabia he learned that women are required to wear a black cloak like outfit, abayas, while in the public. He mentions that women who even showed a little patch of hair in the public were frowned upon. This is a situation where there are two extremes displaying no equality when it comes to choice of clothing. Either these women obey the rules by being fully covered or be frowned upon by not being fully covered. To find equality in this circumstance would be very difficult since how a person dresses is apart of culture. There is also no equality when is comes to women's rights. Certain buildings do not allow women to enter but men can. Clearly there is no equality between men and women, because women sometimes can not even go into the same building that a man can.