Posted: Mar 07, 2014 4:04 am
Nicko wrote:@ TMB:
Your thesis in this thread appears to be that successful men in professional sports have access to a certain set of benefits based upon their performance and the fame that comes with it; women in professional sports have access to the same set of performance-based benefits plus benefits derived from an attribute I choose to call "hawtness" (should they possess it). According to this thesis, women therefore have access to more potential benefits than men in the context of professional sports.
The problem with this thesis is that women do not derive the same quantity of performance-based benefits from professional sports as men. There is just less money floating around in women's sport, both directly and in terms of sponsorship and endorsements.
Hi Nicko, you are partly correct. The thesis I sated was that in the case of swimming. Rebecca commented that she felt under pressure due to her looks, something that all women appear to be subject to more than men in similar scenarios. I then noted that as a female she is a beneficiary of the fact that women are give very similar status and recognition for actual performance that is inferior to men in swimming. Therefore is she trying to have her cake and eat it to?
The benefit that women derive from elite sport is indeed lower than that derived by men (and associated costs) is limited to a few sports (a point I made earlier), athletics, tennis and golf (lesser than tennis and athletics), while many other sports, obvious ones like rugby, cricket, soccer, baseball, ice hockey, boxing, MMA, AFL, league rugby, gridiron women have nowhere near the recognition and benefit - so you misread my earlier posts.
Note however the cost paid by men in pursuing these elite sports, costs that are carried less by women because they do not subject themselves to the same stresses and risk as men in these sports. Physical wear and tear on the body is significant at all levels of contact and high risk sport like rugby, MMA and F1 racing, men carrying the cost of these during and after their careers. Tennis is one sport where womens prize money and endorsements are comparitive, noting that women get paid same/similar prize money which in turn results in endorsements which are bigger dollar amounts than purse money. Were sex discrimination removed from the sport they would be getting neither purse money or endorsements.