Saturday, September 1, 2007

I Think I'm Missing A Few Zeroes

So, who among is not vested in the notion of equal pay for women? Ah, that is as I thought. Now, as I am wont to do, I will take this topic into the sporting realm. Equal pay for women's sports. This is quite the hot topic after Wimbledon finally decide to get on board with the equal pay for women concept (daring as it is).

One aspect of the debate is the labor theory of value. Andy Murray, are you serious? Did you just go on record and say that "the guys have the potential to play a 5 1/2-hour match"? Granted, he has backtracked since then even if Tommy Hass has yet to see the light. However, I can only infer from the initial simplistic statement that Murray originally felt that women don't have the potential to play a 5 1/2 hour match. Could that be because the powers that be in the sporting community tend to alter the rules for the women's side of the sport to, I can only assume, pander to our more delicate side? This particular aspect of the debate can be seen all around the web. In fact, even the Christians have taken up the cause. Apparently Jesus weighed in on this topic and He was already against us way back then. That doesn't bode well, now does it?

The other aspect of the debate is that women deserve equal pay, period. It's all well and good for those who say that women sports shouldn't get equal pay unless they do the same amount of work...all well and good, but wrong. Fine, so the debate revolves around tennis where women are forced to play fewer sets. However, the same argument does not hold weight for golf (I'll put in here that yes, the fairways are shorter for women, but they play just as long as men), soccer (if women get paid to play soccer at all), or basketball. I find it striking that the equal pay debate focuses upon tennis so that the equal work ploy seems valid. It's when you look at all the aspects where women don't get paid the same for the same amount of work that those same voices grow remarkably silent.

Here is my last link...I enjoyed the side by side debate.

1 comment:

habladora said...

I love that the Christianity Today post supports this idea of unequal pay with the quotation "the worker deserves his pay." By Mark Morning's logic, this line can be used to support the inverse of this statement as well, that the non-worker deserves no pay. The sick aren't in the fields? Let them starve! And that the less-worker deserves less pay. Don't do any work to define "work" - just assume that this is all in support of a fixed hourly rate that should be the same for all people in all jobs, regardless of any circumstances. $11 an hour, no matter what. It is wonderful the way that people can take every affirmative thing written in their sacred texts to be veiled restrictions or judgments.