Women have been the brains behind computer software, space station batteries, stem cell isolation and even Monopoly… so why don’t people think they should be given the same opportunities as men?
It’s a centuries old debate about if women and men should be paid the same for participating in sports and allowed to participate in the same competitions that men do.
Take Aaron Ramsey for example; forward for Wales and until very recently, Arsenal.
Last month, he was sold to Juventus for an eye watering contract, where he’ll reportedly be earning over £400,000 PER WEEK. That’s an hourly rate of around £200, which probably equates to him being paid about £3.00 in the time it’s taken me to write these few sentences.
On the other hand, take Manchester City and England Captain Steph Houghton. She led the Lionesses to a 3rd place finish in the 2015 World Cup, more recently to win the 2019 SheBelieves Cup and has been awarded an MBE for her services to football. She’s one of the top paid English female footballers and is paid about £65,000 a year with a chance to make it up to £70,000 with sponsorship and performance bonuses.
It’s not just the top players that can see the differences in pay. The Women’s Super League which is the equivalent to the male Premier League. Some of the female players will only earn £50 a week and still work on the side. Even Claire Rafferty who is an England and West Ham player is a part time financial analyst for a bank in the city whilst she’s not playing.
Although 35 out of the 44 prize money paying sports do now pay equally, there’s still a huge difference within football, cricket and golf when it comes to taking home the winnings.
The England women took home the victory in the Cricket World Cup last Summer and between them, the champions won £470,000. This sounds great until you go on to read that if the men won, they’d been taking home £3.1 million! It’s a very similar story with Golf’s British Open; female winners would be looking to take home £487,500 while the men would take home £1.175 million.
In recent years, only 0.4% of all the commercial investment into sport in Britain was going in to women’s sport and it form a vicious circle. The ladies sport doesn’t get enough exposure to the media and to the public. Therefore they won’t get much marketing surrounding them which means sponsors won’t invest and the female athlete won’t get the exposure that would increase the demand for coverage.
When England Centre Back Lucy Bronze was off to her first FA Cup final, the team had to pack bags in Tesco to raise money to get the bus to London… I can’t imagine the England men having to do that, can you?
In the news this week, the US Women’s football team were suing US Soccer over their gender discrimination.
“Despite the fact that these female and male players are called upon to perform the same job responsibilities on their teams and participate in international competitions for their single common employer, the USSF, the female players have been consistently paid less money than their male counterparts,' the complaint, filed by all 28 members of the USWNT in United States District Court in Los Angeles, states.
“This is true even though their performance has been superior to that of the male players — with the female players, in contrast to male players, becoming world champions. Indeed, the USWNT has won three World Cup titles, most recently in 2015, and is one of the favourites headed into the 2019 Women’s World Cup this summer in France. It is currently the top-ranked women’s soccer team in the world. The men’s team failed to even qualify for last year’s men’s World Cup."
They have good reasoning to be frustrated. In the news last week, it was claimed that France earned $38 million from FIFA for winning soccer's World Cup in Russia, while the women's champion in France this summer will earn just $4 million, has prompted outrage. The total prize money for the Women's World Cup in France this July will be $30 million compared with total prize money of $440 million for the men's teams at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
While the FA are hoping to be able to raise the wages for female players so that football can become a viable career option for woman and girls, it'll be interesting to see the outcome of the USWNT's complaint against US Soccer pans out.
Whist researching for this article, I found the general perception of women in sport wasn’t that great. Lots of people commenting that if women want to be paid the same as men, they should play against men because it would show how weak females are compared to the men... But that’s just how the body is made. Of course females and males have different physiques but it doesn’t all come down to how strong someone is. If a girl puts in as much training, strength and determination and makes the same sacrifices as men, why should they not be treated equally?
It's not even just the playing of sport itself, some men also deem women unfit to even commentate on sport. Ex England football Alex Scott and Hockey Olympian Sam Quek have both recently come under fire for their punditry - just because they're female, does that make them unsuitable for commenting on a match? Absolutely not. Female pundits face huge amount of sexism every single day and with the likes of social media making it so easy for opinions to be voiced, it seems people are taking to Twitter and Instagram to show their dismay - how very dare a female be commenting on a male football match?!
As Premier League Tonight presenter, Jake Humphrey pointed out recently, some of the biggest managers in football; Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho haven't ever played football to the highest level, so what makes them any more able to comment on how a team should be lead? Speaking with Humphrey, ex football star Rachel Brown-Finnis summed it up:
“We’ve played for England, we’ve been to World Cups, we’ve been to European Championships, played at the Olympics, played at the top level, played at the elite level,” she explained. “And, of course, we don’t play men’s football, because we’re not men. So take that comparison away, it’s ridiculous. We’ve played elite people, we’ve been professional footballers, we do know our trade inside out. And that’s football, it’s not women’s football. “If they’re not good enough, don’t give them a job. If they are good enough, give them the opportunity to be on there. Simple as that.”
It seems 2019 is already off to a strong start with changes being made for the better regarding women in sport and day to day life and we can only hope these changes go from strength to strength for the rest of this year and the years to come.
