I consider equality a baseline for human rights. In that we all should be granted basic rights simply for being self-aware individuals. I believe it in turn goes hand in hand with consideration of merit, in that while I do not believe equality should trump merit (ie: quotas), it should allow for merit to be held as a standard independent of all else. There should be no limits on gender, or gender identity, sexuality, religion, and so forth placed on serving in a particular role, but rather the only deciding factor should be the ability to serve in that role in the desired physical, mental, and emotional capacity. And while this does mean that there will be an imbalance in representation in certain roles in society, that imbalance should never be indicative of a restriction should someone meet the needs of that role while not being a member of the overly represented demographic. To put that into an example, the military issue spoken of repeatedly in this thread. While it may be more difficult for a woman to pass the requirements for special forces service, any woman who can pass the training should be held equal to any man who does. However, I also would allow for a notable caveat in that any body representing the whole of society should seek to diversify to meet the disparate needs of society (though perhaps not expressly be required to do so, and thus should instead be incumbent upon people to seek of their own will or it is inherently meaningless tokenism).
Essentially, I follow the Genghis Khan model minus the mass murder and horses.
