Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
Overcoming the Penrose Stairs of history: the legislated treatment of the 'designated groups' within a hierarchy of discrimination approach
A Penrose Staircase- an impossible object always ending ascending yet constantly descending and ending as an illusion. This is Employment Equity legislation in South Africa with its purported aim of redressing the disadvantages of its designated groups. It is legislation that aims to promote equal o...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Department of Commercial Law
2016
|
| Subjects: | |
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867613253908037632 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Susan, Brett Andre |
| author2 | Collier, Debbie |
| author_browse | Collier, Debbie Susan, Brett Andre |
| author_facet | Collier, Debbie Susan, Brett Andre |
| author_sort | Susan, Brett Andre |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | A Penrose Staircase- an impossible object always ending ascending yet constantly descending and ending as an illusion. This is Employment Equity legislation in South Africa with its purported aim of redressing the disadvantages of its designated groups. It is legislation that aims to promote equal opportunity, fair treatment and eliminate unfair discrimination yet cannot unshackle itself from the very types of racial identifiers that it wishes to have eliminated. This paper is an attempt to give greater content and context to the purpose of Employment Equity than the few sentences provided in the preamble of the Act. In particular, I have focused on the Act's own racial differentiator - 'Blacks' - as a seemingly convenient catch-all rubric which is drenched with the very abhorrent salience of race and thickening of racial classifications which it wishes to escape from. 'Blacks', as Africans, Indians and Coloureds, as I will conclude, have intertwined yet different experiences of apartheid and their emergence from Apartheid and projected future can be so vastly contrasted that Employment Equity measures based on its current simplified Verwoerd an racial descriptors will perpetuate inequality and racial disunity. This paper is a study some of the more than three hundred years of policies, practices, laws and the might of the sophisticated government machinery which aimed at placing Whites at the apex of control over the country's resources and contrast how each of the designated groups have (1) experienced legislated discrimination aimed against them; (2) as a snapshot of 1994, how they have emerged from this history and(3) the predicted trajectory that each group can expect in their share of resources in the future. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/19912 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:33:12.104Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publishDateRange | 2016 |
| publishDateSort | 2016 |
| publisher | Department of Commercial Law |
| publisherStr | Department of Commercial Law |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/19912 Overcoming the Penrose Stairs of history: the legislated treatment of the 'designated groups' within a hierarchy of discrimination approach Susan, Brett Andre Collier, Debbie Labour Law A Penrose Staircase- an impossible object always ending ascending yet constantly descending and ending as an illusion. This is Employment Equity legislation in South Africa with its purported aim of redressing the disadvantages of its designated groups. It is legislation that aims to promote equal opportunity, fair treatment and eliminate unfair discrimination yet cannot unshackle itself from the very types of racial identifiers that it wishes to have eliminated. This paper is an attempt to give greater content and context to the purpose of Employment Equity than the few sentences provided in the preamble of the Act. In particular, I have focused on the Act's own racial differentiator - 'Blacks' - as a seemingly convenient catch-all rubric which is drenched with the very abhorrent salience of race and thickening of racial classifications which it wishes to escape from. 'Blacks', as Africans, Indians and Coloureds, as I will conclude, have intertwined yet different experiences of apartheid and their emergence from Apartheid and projected future can be so vastly contrasted that Employment Equity measures based on its current simplified Verwoerd an racial descriptors will perpetuate inequality and racial disunity. This paper is a study some of the more than three hundred years of policies, practices, laws and the might of the sophisticated government machinery which aimed at placing Whites at the apex of control over the country's resources and contrast how each of the designated groups have (1) experienced legislated discrimination aimed against them; (2) as a snapshot of 1994, how they have emerged from this history and(3) the predicted trajectory that each group can expect in their share of resources in the future. 2016-06-02T08:50:51Z 2016-06-02T08:50:51Z 2015 Master Thesis Masters LLM http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19912 eng application/pdf Department of Commercial Law Faculty of Law University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Labour Law Susan, Brett Andre Overcoming the Penrose Stairs of history: the legislated treatment of the 'designated groups' within a hierarchy of discrimination approach |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Overcoming the Penrose Stairs of history: the legislated treatment of the 'designated groups' within a hierarchy of discrimination approach |
| title_full | Overcoming the Penrose Stairs of history: the legislated treatment of the 'designated groups' within a hierarchy of discrimination approach |
| title_fullStr | Overcoming the Penrose Stairs of history: the legislated treatment of the 'designated groups' within a hierarchy of discrimination approach |
| title_full_unstemmed | Overcoming the Penrose Stairs of history: the legislated treatment of the 'designated groups' within a hierarchy of discrimination approach |
| title_short | Overcoming the Penrose Stairs of history: the legislated treatment of the 'designated groups' within a hierarchy of discrimination approach |
| title_sort | overcoming the penrose stairs of history the legislated treatment of the designated groups within a hierarchy of discrimination approach |
| topic | Labour Law |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/19912 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT susanbrettandre overcomingthepenrosestairsofhistorythelegislatedtreatmentofthedesignatedgroupswithinahierarchyofdiscriminationapproach |