I believe in equal treatment, not equal outcomes.
I was talking to my best friend’s 16 year old daughter who proudly called herself a feminist. She said she wanted everyone treated equally. I told her I agreed. She said she wanted equal pay for the same job regardless of sex. Again, I agreed, but with one brutal difference.
If you agreed to a salary and showed up for the job, don’t whine when someone else doing the same job got more. You accepted the terms. You signed the deal. You showed up. You worked. End of story.
This isn’t a new argument. It’s been around since ancient times. In fact, Jesus himself explained it in a parable most modern people would find offensive today. Why? Because the truth hurts.
Matthew 20:1-16 – The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard.
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ “ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’ “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’ “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
The message is brutal: if you agreed to something, live with it. You don’t get to complain just because someone else negotiated better or walked away with more. Equality doesn’t mean everyone gets the same reward. It means you get what you agreed to.
That’s not injustice. That’s personal accountability.
