Equality Part 2: When Sexism Is Encouraged
I’m a believer in equality. I believe in equality of opportunity, although to be that’s a fancy way of saying I believe in fairness. Which is why I’ve produced a set of posts on the theme of equality, rambling through my beliefs and experiences as regards equalities and politics, sexism, sexuality, racism and disability. A little something for everyone…
Sexism and ‘Positive Discrimination’
One of the things that seems to annoy a lot of people is the term ‘positive discrimination’: that is to say favouring under represented groups at the expense of others.
Well, that’s about as fair as burglary. If you’re biased against someone because they are black, you’re wrong. If you’re biased against someone because they’re female, you’re wrong. If you’re biased against someone because they are a white middle class male, that’s just as offensive. You either pick the best candidate for the job (or whatever) or by your actions you are explicity carrying out discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, whatever.
Which is why I got annoyed when I was listening to Radio 5. There was some mention made of Wimbledon and — assuming I’m remembering correctly — an implication that it is now fairer now that men and women get the same prize money.
Fairer? Are you mad? The Men’s champion, Roger Federer, had to play 205 games of tennis in order to get his £700,000 of prize money. Had one of his opponents not withdrawn through injury, he would have had to play a minimum of 18 games more. That’s 223 games, or £3,139 per game.
Meanwhile, Venus Williams had to play only 144 games to get the same money — she was paid £4861 per game. That means, she gets paid more than 50% more, per game, than her male equivalent would be expected to. That’s equality is it? Sounds to me like there’s a case for ‘job evaluation’ if I’ve ever heard one.
Of course, the basic reason behind this is that the rules of tennis are unfair: men play best of 5 sets, women best of 3. So in order to make the equality in prize money fair, I’d just simply suggest that all women’s singles games are played to the best of 5 sets in future. Is that ok with everyone?
Similarly, I read a piece in the ‘Vent Your Spleen’ in the local paper (yes, it is called that) where someone was complaining that they had been turned away from the local swimming pool because it was “ladies only” that night. They then asked when the “men only” night was, and were laughed at.
Sorry? Firstly, if you are a public sector employee, laughing at someone who pays their council tax to fund your wages probably isn’t a wise move. They are paying for you, they have a right to expect a service from you, or at least a little respect when they feel they have a grievance.
Now, part of the reason for ladies only swimming sessions, ladies only gymns and so on is that some ladies feel uncomfortable or have difficulties (for cultural or other reasons) carrying out these activities in front of men. So you have to treat these people differently to provide the same equality of opportunity. I don’t have a problem with that.
However, what happens if there are some men who are particularly shy, or for whatever reason, aren’t comfortable carrying out these activities in front of women? Would they not be equally entitled to a ‘men only’ night, for precisely the same purpose, again to provide that equality of opportunity?
I don’t actually have the faintest idea whether or not any people fall into this category, but if someone has specifically requested a men only night, it’s surely appropriate to carry out a little research at least. If there are people who this applies to, then they deserve their men only night. If the people are just complaining about being treated differently, then they need the concept of equality of opportunity described to them…
Hello. I am 
Sorry, didn’t you just describe yourself as a “pinko liberal bleeding heart eco-lefty” in your last post?
I completely agree with what you are writing in this series. It’s just this that in Finland, if you’d say what you just said in this post, you’d probably be labeled as a hard core right-winger…
Lasse is right, and it isn’t just Finland. Equality of opportunity is a concept attributed to conservatism, while a “bleeding heart eco-lefty” would ascribe to equality of outcome. It would seem that what you actually believe in is a combination of the two, or one or the other in certain situations.
@CT: I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree with you there.
Equality of outcome is ensuring that two people (or two groups of people) achieve the same things. If those two people want different things, or one person works hard and another doesn’t — then it’s perfectly fair for them to have a different outcome.
If you define that as right-wing/conservatism, then that’s your call.
As I’m prepared to ensure that positive action needs to be taken in order to provide those different people or groups with equal opportunity to succeed, then I think consider it to be a left, or at least centre-left political standpoint.
I don’t really care where it stands though: to me, that equality of opportunity is fair. And fair is what I want.
I suppose a communist/marxist theory (hard left) would be more inclined to suggest that equality of outcome premise, but even most hard lefties would argue that there deserves to be a difference in outcome if people want different things or put different amounts of effort into it.
Thinking about it, I should probably have been clearer that what I acknowledge that there is still a lot of sexism around; in cultural attitudes to childcare, in the whole ‘glass ceiling’ thing; and in an awful lot of other places too.
It’s right to take action to combat sexism. But in my opinion, it’s wrong to take action to correct discrimination by discriminating against a different group.
That’s what I was trying to say. Not that men are some poor, put-upon minority…
Hi
I agree with what you are saying JackP. It does seem that in our move towards equality we are favouring a previously discriminated-against group at the expense of other groups. We have the opportunity now to redress past imbalances and do right by all sorts of groups that haven’t historically had it easy. Sadly, I think we going about it the wrong way. At present we are just creating a vicious cycle where the previously-disadvantaged becomes the advantaged. This will then need to be redressed again in the future. It’s a slippery slope.
Surely the answer is to do away with mens and womens competitions and just have an open competition, combine the prize money, then the best players regardless of gender will be able to compete on an equal footing for the prize money, surely that is what equality is all about.
Alternatively make all mens competitions open to women, allowing the women to compete at the higher level if they wanted but still having the ability to play in womens only competition. Sport is after all about winning and loosing.