One would have to discern that on a case by case basis somewhat in that many people give the vague term different meaning of course.
When it comes to the term equality, I think it's most commonly associated with liberal rhetoric in regards to formal law. So often it's about formal equality in law (treating people exactly the same is fair).
But this of course has problems where there is difference.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
This epitomizes liberalism in it's abstractness, it was progressive to contemplate the abstract equality of people though. It of course didn't presume a inherent human dignity in many without struggle though.
But getting formal legal recognition is a big gain for a demographic to have.
But because of substantive differences, there can be justification for differential treatment. So for example if abortion is to be legal, it in practice is a legal right for women as men can't get pregnant and so can't have an abortion. The differential treatment doesn't deprive men of a right, but grants a legal right for a difference. In the same way disability rights grants things to the particular needs of a person with a disability, and is inapplicable without those disabilities.
Substantive equality is what I think some people get at if they're not liberals, in that what seems like unjust differential treatment to liberals, is in fact treating people in better accordance to their particular needs and existence. It's a higher moral standard than treat people how you wish to be treated in instead being about treating people who they wish/should be treated. Emphasizing that materially, we're not exactly the same, clone #10085 on the production line, there are differences, which need not be assumed inherent across time and place but historically contingent and thus can even be temporarily based.
But to get at what a person refers to with the use of equality, one would need a context because it could just as readily be the formal or the substnative.
Because in some cases its progressive to press for the formal, in other cases it's detrimental. And so can see people shift their emphasis on where they want things to be equal of some sort depending on the issue.
Some might for example talk about treating women equal in the formal sense in regards to abortion, which may be that no one should be allowed abortions. Much like the earlier quote about the rich and poor.
Also see with liberals that don't wish to change the conditions that underpin the visible outcomes, that they want equal outcomes in quotas and such.
http://unityandstruggle.org/2013/09/12/i-am-a-woman-and-a-human-a-marxist-feminist-critique-of-intersectionality-theory/For several pages, Fanon argues that black people must embrace blackness, and struggle on the basis of being black, in order to negate white supremacists social relations. But to stop there reproduces our one-sided existence and the forms of appearance of capitalism. Identity politics argues, “I am a black man,” or “I am a woman,” without filling out the other side of the contradiction “…and I am a human.” If the starting and ending point is one-sided, there is no possibility for abolishing racialized and gendered social relations. For supporters of identity politics (despite claiming otherwise), womanhood, a form of appearance within society, is reduced to a natural, static “identity.” Social relations such as “womanhood,” or simply gender, become static objects, or “institutions.” Society is therefore organized into individuals, or sociological groups with natural characteristics. Therefore, the only possibility for struggle under identity politics is based on equal distribution or individualism (I will discuss this further below). This is a bourgeois ideology in that it replicates the alienated individual invented and defended by bourgeois theorists and scientists (and materially enforced) since capitalism’s birth.
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On the one hand, abstract “sociological” groups or individuals struggle for an equal voice, equal “representation,” or equal resources. Many have experienced this in organizing spaces where someone argues that there are not enough women of color, disabled individuals, transfolks, etc., present for a campaign to move forward. A contemporary example of this is the critique of Slut Walk for being too white and therefore a white supremacist or socially invalid movement. Another example is groups and individuals who argue that all movements should be completely subordinate to queer people of color leadership, regardless of how reactionary their politics are. Again, while intersectionality theorists have rightly identified an objective problem, these divisions and antagonisms within the class must be address materially through struggle. Simply reducing this struggle to mere quantity, equality of distribution, or “representation,” reinforces identity as a static, naturalized category.
This is where see emphasized that there should be 50/50 or some proportion related to the local demographics represented.
But one might speak of equality not necessarily in the outcome, which may or may not occur, but in regards to the starting conditions (equality of opportunity). Which would be more merit based in the sense that one is seeking to give ample opportunity to all. But this is unrealistic within capitalist relations where there just is no way for a kid from a poor family to be on par in life with that of someone raised with reasonable wealth.
So I think the question is framed too open ended and ambiguous, where should deal with real examples that come up and assess them and what seems to be going on. Because the idea that someone is speaking about being equal with the demographics in the poll seems misplaced from contexts in which equality arises.
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/For%20Ethical%20Politics.pdf#page90
-For Ethical Politics
The question is N/A. All humans are "equal".
- By wat0n