The momentum gained from the growth in women’s sport is at risk of being lost if it is not prioritised in discussions on how sport returns when lockdown measures are relaxed.
Such a warning comes amid concerns that women’s sport is being pushed down the agenda with devastating consequences.
Nothing like a crisis to make people ponder on what they value. And if something is found to be less valuable as a result of that pondering then, well, and?
Sport being, of course, hugely fun to those playing and often enough to those watching. That’s why near all human societies have some version of this adult version of child’s play. Which isn’t the thing that’s being whined about here at all. What is being insisted upon is that wimmins should be paid, as they only recently have been, to perform this enjoyment. Something which, in a free market and capitalist society, they will be if their doing so produces greater value than the other things which could be done.
And if it doesn’t – the worry producing said whining – then what that free market and capitalist society is stating is that the wimmins shouldn’t be paid for their enjoyment.
Once again, prices are information. Not information that we have to like but which we do have to pay attention to.
Judge dismisses US Womens soccer teams equal pay claim:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/may/02/usa-womens-soccer-equal-pay-lawsuit
They don’t want equality………
These US women drive me nuts. They want more money, which is fine, but then they behave as if they are fighting for some grand cause. You are playing football, that’s all. You are not Rosa Parks, you are spoilt children playing games.
And they are playing football below the standard of an under 15 boys team…https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/a-dallas-fc-under-15-boys-squad-beat-the-u-s-womens-national-team-in-a-scrimmage/
why don’t the 15yos make a pay claim given they are better than these highly paid women?
This subject was analyzed to death a couple of years ago. As I recall, the women’s union negotiated contract provided for guaranteed salaries will limited upside incentives should they win championships. In other words, they incurred little financial risk. The men’s contract was more performance based. Theoretically the men could have earned much more than the women had they won a championship, but they didn’t and so earned less than the women. Apparently, this is hugely unfair and discriminatory.
I have paid to watch women compete and I have paid (generally, more) to watch men compete. For the reasons others have mentioned, they are two different products and there is no reason in equity why the prices should be the same.
There is a US law (Title IX of the Civil Rights Act) requiring that colleges have an equal number of men’s and women’s athletic programs. This law has extinguished some options for men.
I hve paid to watch women wrestling in mud, and would not complain if this womens’ sport were prioritized. to hell with womens’ footie and rugby.
Jabez
Women’s college mud-wrestling might be the thing that saves the men’s baseball program. Don’t discount roller derby. There is no mud, but there is a lot of black make-up.