... women by attempting to remove inequality of status which exists throughout the social class hierarchy, thus allowing qualified women and minorities to compete equally for jobs, education, and promotional opportunities. Inequality of status, as opposed to positional inequality, refers to the disproportional representation of a particular group in a hierarchical structure, (men, for example, make up less than 50% of the population yet hold a considerably greater share of the high level management positions in the corporate sector). Positional inequality, on the other hand, deals with the status of an entire income class, all races and genders within that class, in relation to other classes, an inequality between rich and poor for example. Affirmative action is not intended to directly remedy positional inequality, this task being under the goals of welfare programs. Its origins in a nutshell: The programs of affirmative action stemmed from the urges of mainly Afro-Americans ...

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