Feminism Redux

[mormont]

Actually you kind of can, while the levels of pay are determined by the popularity of a certain sport within the sport pay is largely determined by the levels of performance and this is were you can see a real disparity between men and women.While this is not the case in all sports, it is in most.

If you want to frame the argument in terms of revenue generated then the vast majority of men's sports outperform women's sports by a significant margin.

My point was that in sports you can actually see real disparities in performance between men and women which is not the case in most fields, even those that have minimum requirements for strength and stamina were you might expect to see fewer women working in those jobs once the women meet those requirements you would expect women to be paid the same.

What you're talking about here, though, is not "a reasonable argument for disparities in wages between men and women". It's a reasonable argument for some disparities in wages, in some sports, based on a secondary effect on popularity derived from strength and size etc., which is in turn a secondary effect of biological sex. That's several stages from being a "reasonable argument" for gender pay disparities in sport in general. I apologise for reiterating the point, but it's a key one for understanding the wider issue of the pay gap - secondary effects must not be confused with primary ones.

[ljkeane]

What you're talking about here, though, is not "a reasonable argument for disparities in wages between men and women". It's a reasonable argument for some disparities in wages, in some sports, based on a secondary effect on popularity derived from strength and size etc., which is in turn a secondary effect of biological sex. That's several stages from being a "reasonable argument" for gender pay disparities in sport in general. I apologise for reiterating the point, but it's a key one for understanding the wider issue of the pay gap - secondary effects must not be confused with primary ones.

The only reasonable argument for disparities in wages is disparities in performance and in sport in general size, strength, speed and stamina are all major contributing factors in performance which men in general have an advantage over women.

Are there other factors which can contribute to women being successful in sport, of course there are but that doesn't mean that you can't argue that when men compete at a consistently higher level in many sports and as a result tend to attract far higher revenues that the major disparity between the wages of men and women in sport is justified.

Just because this argument for a disparity in wages cannot be applied to all circumstances does not mean that it not valid when applied to many sports and in fact any other field were you can see a real disparity in performance between genders, I just don't feel that there are many area were this is the case.

Edit: Look I really don't want to hijack this thread beacuse I don't think it was intended to be an argument about women's sport. My point was simply that sport is an area with a large disparity between what women are paid and what men are paid however you can make an argument that this is not due sexism which I don't think is often the case.

[Happy Ent]

Wait-wait. I’m confused now. (And I’m not trying to make a point, finding the whole sports angle pretty silly. These are honest questions. )

There wage disparity in sports is in favour of women, right?

Women earn considerably more money for the same performance than men, right? And the question is whether that’s ok. Right? (Or am I misunderstanding something?)

A female tennis star makes a shit-load more money than a man at her level, right? (Honest question – this should be pretty easy to measure.) A female golf pro can make a living from a performance that wouldn’t be sufficient for a man, right?

[MinDonner]

Wait-wait. I’m confused now. (And I’m not trying to make a point, finding the whole sports angle pretty silly. These are honest questions. )

There wage disparity in sports is in favour of women, right?

Women earn considerably more money for the same performance than men, right? And the question is whether that’s ok. Right? (Or am I misunderstanding something?)

A female tennis star makes a shit-load more money than a man at her level, right? (Honest question – this should be pretty easy to measure.) A female golf pro can make a living from a performance that wouldn’t be sufficient for a man, right?

Apparently, yes (I have no interest in the salaries of tennis stars and can't be bothered to Google them either, but this is the premise on which the threadjack was begun).

[ljkeane]

A female tennis star makes a shit-load more money than a man at her level, right? (Honest question – this should be pretty easy to measure.) A female golf pro can make a living from a performance that wouldn’t be sufficient for a man, right?

Not really, in tennis the prize money at Grand Slam events is the same for men and women and there might have been a few women who make more in sponsership but in general I think the vast majority of male tennis players make more money than their female counterparts.

I suppose you could make the argument that women performing at a certain level in sport might make more money than men performing at the same standard :dunno: If they are getting paid with the money that is generated by the revenue they attract I don't think this is a problem. I think the only circumstances were people do object is when they get paid at an artificially high level as some people argue they do with regard to the prize money in tennis but I can see the benefits from doing this for tennis.

[Tempra]

Wait-wait. I’m confused now. (And I’m not trying to make a point, finding the whole sports angle pretty silly. These are honest questions. )

There wage disparity in sports is in favour of women, right?

In tennis. I don't know about any other sports.

Women earn considerably more money for the same performance than men, right? And the question is whether that’s ok. Right? (Or am I misunderstanding something?)

In tennis, women get paid the same for 40% less work

A female tennis star makes a shit-load more money than a man at her level, right? (Honest question – this should be pretty easy to measure.) A female golf pro can make a living from a performance that wouldn’t be sufficient for a man, right?

Yes, becuase she performs less work in her singles match, she can then enter the doubles and mixed doubles tournament.

[Ser_not_appearing_yet]

Women's tennis may be more popular than men's tennis, and so there's more money in it from sponsorship/merchandise deals. The only reason it is more popular however is because its been 'sexed up'. A lot of women's tennis fans just want to watch pretty girls in tight outfits run around on court. The level of play doesnt matter so much to them. I have nothing against seeing attractive women, but as a sports fan this upsets me. The best performers in the sport should make the most money, irrelevant of their sex.

[Lord O' Bones]

Why is this discussion stuck in the microcosm of tennis?

[Jaerv]

Why is this discussion stuck in the microcosm of tennis?

Good question. I suggest to switch to the new sport of Women Hauling

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Because Ser not appearing yet is apparently unwilling to acknowledge that "while it's true that women probably wouldn't be able to make it into a top-level rugby team, this isn't the devastating blow to the roots of feminism that some people seem to imagine it is. Still less does it provide any support for the idea that inequality in pay in, say, high finance can probably be safely ascribed to sex differences and left alone."?

Actually, it's more that he appears unwilling to engage the idea at all.

[Guest Raidne]

I think sport is interesting....

Good. I'm glad the thread is still interesting to someone.

[Bellis]

Number of men posting in the last 35 posts: 13

Number of women posting in the last 35 posts: 4 (not counting this one)

Title of thread: Feminism redux

Hypothesis: Most women do not enjoy conversations about sports.

[Ser_not_appearing_yet]

Because Ser not appearing yet is apparently unwilling to acknowledge that "while it's true that women probably wouldn't be able to make it into a top-level rugby team, this isn't the devastating blow to the roots of feminism that some people seem to imagine it is. Still less does it provide any support for the idea that inequality in pay in, say, high finance can probably be safely ascribed to sex differences and left alone."?

Actually, it's more that he appears unwilling to engage the idea at all.

Eh? When did i claim any such thing? I'm not engaging that because it wasnt what i was saying. Re-read my last post.

[Kat]

Hypothesis: Most women do not enjoy conversations about sports.

Some women also don't really care to have another argument about women and sports when the last feminism thread to get derailed the same way was only a month ago...

[Bellis]

Some women also don't really care to have another argument about women and sports when the last feminism thread to get derailed the same way was only a month ago...

True, iirc, the demographics of the posters of the last few pages of that thread were similarly skewed to the Y.

[G'Kar]

That's right, we males are sabotaging any discourse about feminism, just as we've always done. You've caught us.

[Lady Blackfish]

IIRC women did try playing five sets for a while and the quality wasn't deemed as worth it.

IMO it depends on if you see the money in tennis as salary or as a prize.

ETA: because I'm up late enough to be convinced that engaging further is a good idea, which will undoubtedly be a bad idea in the morning, but whatever.

Lots of women don't want to be called feminists because feminists are caricaturized as humorless nagging bulldyke harpy shrew bitches and because divide and conquer is a well storied and well loved tactic and to be seen as worthy of male attention and company you have to prove yourself capable of seeing through all the lockstep feminist conspiracy bullshit. Because to be considered of good humor, you have to accept female emotions, concerns, and realities as innately more ridiculous. Because if you complain about unfairness you're whiny and lazy and classless. Because to be cool, you have to not care, and because somewhere along the line being frustrated with gender dynamics became equivalent to racist doctrine, mass genocide and invading Poland.

There are different focuses in second vs third wave feminism that are truly grey area. Sex being the big one that comes to mind, revolving around the "freedom from" vs "freedom to" conundrum. Some women may have arrived at the conclusion that to be feminist means you can't enjoy sex, want to look attractive to your significant other, etc. Partly this is because it is not easy to be a face for all issues at once, and to that extent third wave feminism is extremely vital because it can go back and expand territory. All the same, it is unfair IMO to take a position like "It is a feminist position that women should not have to deal with unwanted sexual attention" to mean "It is a feminist position that women must reject sexual attention of all kinds". These kinds of backs and forths start in radical fringes but they feed readily into culture wars and divide and conquer tactics.

[Happy Ent]

I suppose you could make the argument that women performing at a certain level in sport might make more money than men performing at the same standard :dunno:

Well, if there is any relevance to the sports angle, that that would be it, right?

We want to know if there is a wage gap: do women get less money/other benefits for the same performance (not “for the same effortâ€) in the job market.

But the sports world is a clear example where women get a lot more money for vastly inferior performance. (In the sense that a female Grand Slam winner would have no chance at even a mediocre male tennis tournament.)

--

If somebody is arguing (and I had that feeling) that professional women in sports should earn as much money as professional men, then that argument does not translate back to the job market. We aren’t arguing that the top 100 female CEOs must earn as much as the top 100 male CEOs, are we? (That would be grotesque.) We are arguing that CEO #45 should make pretty much the same as CEO #46, no matter which of the two is a man.

ETA: and as always, I think a focus on the tails of the distribution is misguided. We should be interested in averages and maybe variances instead.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

Eh? When did i claim any such thing? I'm not engaging that because it wasnt what i was saying. Re-read my last post.

The post I was referring to appears to have been deleted. Which I presume means I'm not supposed to talk about it. So I'll shut up now.

[tzanth]

Ugh. We are still talking about sports?? Why did I feed the troll??

In an attempt to move the thread back to more interesting and enjoyable topics, I would like to ask Raidne why she does not consider Naomi Wolf or Belle Hooks to be third wave feminists.