Employment Inequity

 In my previous life in investment banking, my morning ritual usually involved rushing into the building and into the lift at 08:05 every morning as I tried again, for the umpteenth time, to make 08:00! After catching my breath, I would stand at the back of the lift and look up to observe the people around me.   The one thing that always struck me (apart from the forced conversations, most people not looking up from their Blackberry, the smell of coffee-niccotine on some stressed out soul etc.) was how I would often be the sole female and often  only black person in a lift full of white men.  

My observation,  did not end in the lift.  When I was with my core team, it was predominantly white male.  When I attended business meetings or sat on a board I was surrounded ...yes, by white men.  The only places in the building where they were scarce was in the mail room with the delivery men, at the reception, making tea, cleaning and ofcourse in the HR department. 

It always surprises me then, when some South Africans suggest that employment equity should be done away with as it is an 'unfair' policy.  My question to them is 'What employment Equity?'  All I see is Employment Inequty.