Posted: May 18, 2016 2:28 pm
Shrunk you consistently avoid giving direct answers to the following
Your comment that as mens and womens events within the same sport have been separated, this is somehow comparable to different sports, and therefore as there is no valid basis to compare merit between hockey and baseball, there is also no basis to compare merit between men and women events in the same sport.
You have also noted that people pay because of economics and not merit, as if the two are somehow mutually exclusive. On top of this you do not take a position to say why it is people are prepared to pay anything to watch sport. You don’t appear to see that this is a relevant part of the economics equation.
Now that you have been unable to answer these you are off on yet another sidestep with this
It has been noted throughout this discussion that men and womens tennis grand slam tournaments get paid equally, however since the only reason that mens and womens events are split is because of the difference in tennis ability, and also since merit is used to decide how much to reward the players within both the mens and womens event, the reason for equal pay is buckling to political pressure from the womens lobby. This is consistent with my argument as my issue is the demand that women do get paid the same as men in the same sports, but still wantying to get paid on the basis of merit within the womens events. I have an issue with the hypocrisy in this, and since tennis is one of the few that has buckled, will other sports do the same. The rallying cry appears to be the paying women less is treating them like second class citizens, however I would say that paying women the same for a lower performance is a greater insult because it directly supports the idea that women are inferior and so need protection from the harsh, better quality of mens sport.
This comment is a big win for you? Why don’t you focus your attention to the relevant points in the argument instead of irrelevant trivia like the above?
You are missing the point. My issue is that women feel they are deserving of being paid the same as men if they win a gender segregated tennis singles event. The entire basis of each event is merit, the best player on the day wins the tournament and gets greatest prize money – however by offering women a protected event (on the basis of merit) they are already getting preferential treatment, because if the principle of merit were applied to women as it is to men, women would be eliminated totally.
You appear to think that because women are protected from direct comparison to the better capability in sport that men have, now provides a basis and support for you non argument that reward money is not paid on the basis of merit. The delusion is also played out by someone like Serena Williams when she argues that the women work just as hard as the men. However let us apply this argument when Serena is playing another woman. If Serena beats her (yes its merit again) but her female opponent works just as hard as Serena do you imagine Serena would be OK if they paid all these hardworking women the same as Serena who is a better tennis player? Even paying women less money than the men for the singles still means women get a significant advantage by having their own event. You are still ducking the basic principle that merit is the underlying means to pay people. Answer this question – is there a link between Serenas tennis ability/merit et al and the fact that she gets winners purse? Also note is there another form of value we apply to women when it comes to paying endorsement money. Is there a link between the way Sharapova looks and the amount of money she earns in endorsements (at least before her drug wipe-out) If you are so sure that merit is not the basis we use to judge best, better and worse players and play accordingly, then tell me just what it is in your fantasy world of economics it is the audiences pay money to watch.
You are undermining your own confused argument. Until to face up to the fact that merit is the mechanism that pays more money to better players and we split the mens event from the womens event in order to shield women from the higher merit of men, and allow them a false sense of elite sports ability. And we have done this so successfully that people suspend their critical faculties in order to believe this.
So because we place a women in a protected category, just as we do with younger, older and disabled athletes and pretend that by doing this, a 10.49 is a better time than a 10.39 just because a women does it. This illustrates that the expectation of performance set for women is lower, so in fact we do say that Serena is great tennis player – for a woman, when we would say that Usain Bolt is a great sprinter for a human being.
You are calling attention to womens inferior sprinting ability here. Florence Joyner who ran the 10.49 time and as you say it’s the fastest ever run BY A WOMAN by a considerable margin. The difference is that the competition for Joyner is other women, sprinters who are on average 10% slower than males at the same level. You seem to think that the fact she is faster than other women makes it a big deal, when all it shows is that all women at this level, and every other level, are 10% slower than the men. Once again concessions are made because women are slower. Since you noted in a earlier post this
While you don’t claim this directly your implication above is that being the best woman is somehow relevant when comparing it to male performance, when it is just a reflection on the lower performance capability of women.
Once again you undermine your own position (as confused and convoluted as it is) by pointing out that when we compare men with women we bend the rule of merit in sport to protect women. If we also bent this within an event – ie. If the woman who ran the slowest 100m time was given the gold medal ‘because they tried really hard’, or we ‘felt sorry for them’, the first people to complain would be the woman who ran the fastest time and would demand two things - to be assessed on their merit when compared with other women, and secondly, protected from competing against the superior performance of male athletes.
Your comment that as mens and womens events within the same sport have been separated, this is somehow comparable to different sports, and therefore as there is no valid basis to compare merit between hockey and baseball, there is also no basis to compare merit between men and women events in the same sport.
You have also noted that people pay because of economics and not merit, as if the two are somehow mutually exclusive. On top of this you do not take a position to say why it is people are prepared to pay anything to watch sport. You don’t appear to see that this is a relevant part of the economics equation.
Now that you have been unable to answer these you are off on yet another sidestep with this
Shrunk wrote:
That is what I am saying. Now, I'm still waiting to for you to substantiate the "this is not the case" part. I would suggest you look at how the prize money is allotted in the major Grand Slam tennis tournaments and demonstrate how this is explained by your thesis:
http://www.usopen.org/en_US/about/histo ... money.html
http://www.totalsportek.com/tennis/aust ... ize-money/
http://www.totalsportek.com/tennis/fren ... ize-money/
http://www.totalsportek.com/tennis/wimb ... ize-money/
In particular, pay attention to the difference between men's and women's singles (if there is any), between men's and women's doubles, between both those and mixed doubles, and between singles and doubles overall. Kindly show how this is consistent with your claim that this pay is based on athletic "merit", as you understand it.
Until you clear up your confusion on this issue, I don't think it's going to be worth my mind to wade thru the rest of the verbiage in your post, since it is doubtlessly based on the fundamental conceptual error that, I believe, is illustrated by the above.
It has been noted throughout this discussion that men and womens tennis grand slam tournaments get paid equally, however since the only reason that mens and womens events are split is because of the difference in tennis ability, and also since merit is used to decide how much to reward the players within both the mens and womens event, the reason for equal pay is buckling to political pressure from the womens lobby. This is consistent with my argument as my issue is the demand that women do get paid the same as men in the same sports, but still wantying to get paid on the basis of merit within the womens events. I have an issue with the hypocrisy in this, and since tennis is one of the few that has buckled, will other sports do the same. The rallying cry appears to be the paying women less is treating them like second class citizens, however I would say that paying women the same for a lower performance is a greater insult because it directly supports the idea that women are inferior and so need protection from the harsh, better quality of mens sport.
Shrunk wrote:OK, TMB,. I did manage to read your last post, and I have to say you seem very confused in your argument. For instance, look at this paragraph:In fact men and women often compete against each other many sports like tennis, but almost never at a professional or elite level where there are status symbols at stake. The only reason this is done is so that women can be represented at an elite level. The same rules apply to men as womens tennis, sprinting, surfing, pole vault etc etc. If there was a gender blind tennis event, or 100m sprint, or weightlifting, women would disappear from the elite level. There is no single womens record holder that would even qualify for the mens events in the Olympic games. Serena would not qualify for the last 64 at Wimbledon. When men and women do compete in sport and when comparing club, state, national, international men are better than women. Chris Everts brother was a college level player who could beat Chris in her prime.
I can't imagine why you would go to the effort of writing that, unless you were somehow under the impression that I am claiming that the most accomplished female athletes are generally able to compete at the same level as their male counterparts. If so, please allow me to disavow you of that impression. I am not claiming that in any way.
This comment is a big win for you? Why don’t you focus your attention to the relevant points in the argument instead of irrelevant trivia like the above?
Shrunk wrote:
Where we differ is over your claim that financial compensation for male vs. female athletes is based entirely on what you refer to as "merit," which you define as how well those athletes would do in head-to-head competition (if they play the same sport). Well, if that is the case, Chris Evert's brother must have made much more money from this tennis career than did his sister.
You are missing the point. My issue is that women feel they are deserving of being paid the same as men if they win a gender segregated tennis singles event. The entire basis of each event is merit, the best player on the day wins the tournament and gets greatest prize money – however by offering women a protected event (on the basis of merit) they are already getting preferential treatment, because if the principle of merit were applied to women as it is to men, women would be eliminated totally.
You appear to think that because women are protected from direct comparison to the better capability in sport that men have, now provides a basis and support for you non argument that reward money is not paid on the basis of merit. The delusion is also played out by someone like Serena Williams when she argues that the women work just as hard as the men. However let us apply this argument when Serena is playing another woman. If Serena beats her (yes its merit again) but her female opponent works just as hard as Serena do you imagine Serena would be OK if they paid all these hardworking women the same as Serena who is a better tennis player? Even paying women less money than the men for the singles still means women get a significant advantage by having their own event. You are still ducking the basic principle that merit is the underlying means to pay people. Answer this question – is there a link between Serenas tennis ability/merit et al and the fact that she gets winners purse? Also note is there another form of value we apply to women when it comes to paying endorsement money. Is there a link between the way Sharapova looks and the amount of money she earns in endorsements (at least before her drug wipe-out) If you are so sure that merit is not the basis we use to judge best, better and worse players and play accordingly, then tell me just what it is in your fantasy world of economics it is the audiences pay money to watch.
Shrunk wrote:
Chris Evert's career earnings were $8.9 million, which is a very impressive figure, especially allowing for inflation. But for some reason I cannot seem to find any reference to her brother's earnings from tennis. Now, I guess it is possible that this is such a stupendously huge number that they can't even fit it on the internet. But can you think of another possible explanation?
You are undermining your own confused argument. Until to face up to the fact that merit is the mechanism that pays more money to better players and we split the mens event from the womens event in order to shield women from the higher merit of men, and allow them a false sense of elite sports ability. And we have done this so successfully that people suspend their critical faculties in order to believe this.
Shrunk wrote: No, his idea of "merit" makes sense on its own terms. He considers it to reflect performance in absolute terms, without any adjustment for age, gender, disability, etc. So a woman who runs 100 m in 10.49 secs has less "merit" than a man who runs 10.39, even though within their gender categories the latter is a rather unexceptional time, while the former is the fastest ever run by a considerable margin.
So because we place a women in a protected category, just as we do with younger, older and disabled athletes and pretend that by doing this, a 10.49 is a better time than a 10.39 just because a women does it. This illustrates that the expectation of performance set for women is lower, so in fact we do say that Serena is great tennis player – for a woman, when we would say that Usain Bolt is a great sprinter for a human being.
You are calling attention to womens inferior sprinting ability here. Florence Joyner who ran the 10.49 time and as you say it’s the fastest ever run BY A WOMAN by a considerable margin. The difference is that the competition for Joyner is other women, sprinters who are on average 10% slower than males at the same level. You seem to think that the fact she is faster than other women makes it a big deal, when all it shows is that all women at this level, and every other level, are 10% slower than the men. Once again concessions are made because women are slower. Since you noted in a earlier post this
Shrunk wrote:
I can't imagine why you would go to the effort of writing that, unless you were somehow under the impression that I am claiming that the most accomplished female athletes are generally able to compete at the same level as their male counterparts. If so, please allow me to disavow you of that impression. I am not claiming that in any way.
While you don’t claim this directly your implication above is that being the best woman is somehow relevant when comparing it to male performance, when it is just a reflection on the lower performance capability of women.
Shrunk wrote:
Where he goes off the rails is in suggesting that financial reward is actually allotted on the basis of this "merit." If that were the case, the man who runs 10.39 would be paid more than the women who runs 10.49. I don't know on which planet that happens, but it's not this one.
Once again you undermine your own position (as confused and convoluted as it is) by pointing out that when we compare men with women we bend the rule of merit in sport to protect women. If we also bent this within an event – ie. If the woman who ran the slowest 100m time was given the gold medal ‘because they tried really hard’, or we ‘felt sorry for them’, the first people to complain would be the woman who ran the fastest time and would demand two things - to be assessed on their merit when compared with other women, and secondly, protected from competing against the superior performance of male athletes.