Women's Pay

[Thryleon]

LOL no crap, but maybe you can empathise with what women have been dealing with for a hundred odd years. It doesn't feel great being held back professionally because of your gender does it? You know what would be even worse? Doing the same job, but getting paid less.

Yes I empathise with it, but that doesnt make it right, and people fighting for true equality would never, ever respond with this kind of response.

This is an issue in many facets, not just gender.  Sexual orientation, minority background et al, all need to stop being seen for what they are, and what skills and qualifications they bring to the table.  That is how you promote equality.

At the end of the day, the boys club is an exclusive group of boys, and this argument has become very skewed over the last 2 decades.  This situation is much more even than it used to be.

The fact of the matter is, there are many local footballers getting paid more than the majority of the players in this womens league.

The AFL have reiterated that this is a starting point.  You can't go from 0 to 100 without a little bit of give and take regarding sacrifice.  At the moment, the pie of cash will be unfairly split up, and thats necessary to grow the womens AFL competition.

Comparing local footballers to the players in the womens league is a misnomer.  These competitions have revenue streams, established sponsorship bases, and competition growth that pre exists the AFL in most cases. 

People need to stop seeing this as a situation where the players should be paid based on what they're bringing in. This is an investment, and like any investment, often your outlay is going to take some time before it's showing a return. Shortchanging players is only going to delay the development of the comp. The more talent you can bring in, the better the sport becomes. Unfortunately for a number of players, the financial support the AFL are offering isn't enough to disrupt their current professional lives.

  All sports in every walk of life have been at this level.  This doesnt make it right, but it means that the starting point for growth is lower.  i.e. the womans national soccer team was getting on average I think it was $500 per match and funded their own way to the World Cup just last year.  Thats not right, its a massive discrepancy in pay point, but due to being in the proffesional era of sport, people dont recognise that the males were doing this up until 30 years ago.  Those competitions have grown over the last 100 years, and operational models have changed immensely for that revenue stream to be achieved and yes it did happen quickly, but not so quickly that proffesional womens football has been around long enough to have sourced that income stream.  In some cases its getting there, and I am all for it.

No one is suggesting that these players get paid the same as their male counterparts yet, but why shouldn't the best players in the game be getting at least the same amount as an AFL rookie?

At the moment, if you take gender out of the equation (necessary to evaluate a fairness model) to mount this argument, you need to establish that they are doing the same amount of work over the same period of time.

i.e. an AFL rookie will present for pre season training starting in November at the latest.  They will be treated identically to a full time AFL player.  Their season and preparation will last until the following september 30 dead line as the earliest stopping point.  Currently, an AFL womens player, will be operating a program for not even one half of that time at most, and will also be elligible to participate at the other level of competition to earn another income playing the sport.  Straight away, we are not comparing apples with oranges, and thats why their pay is not equal.  In time, it should flip where women at the pinnacle of the womens game is paid more than the average mens rookie, but that will take time.

With regards to mateinone's original question, I for one will be supporting the comp. I'll buy an additional membership, go to the games and have already contributed to Carlton's Game Changers initiative. I see this as something far more important than just football though. It's finally providing young girls a pathway to achieve professional success in a team sport in Australia. I just wish I was 15 years younger (and had a load more talent) so I would have something to aspire to myself.

+1, I would love to see the future of the female's game taken care of and with any luck the corporate sponsorship that comes with it, will grow to a level where the supporter base is irrelevant (kind of like the AFL version, I dont think bums on seats are necessary for the AFL to turn a profit thanks to tv rights, and sponsorship) but I don't think the two should be compared in anyway shape or form from a salary perspective until we get to the same level of sized income streams.

My initial response, may have come across sounding mysoginistic, but I for one am fed up with the faux equality that gets raised these days.

Check your priviledge has been mentioned to me at times.

In reality, I see this over correction in the equality argument, which leads me to believe that the wrong lessons have been learned.  Make a woman a president, appoint one to management position, and then continue as we used to with jobs for the boys (yes it hurts males too) and no one can say anything because we have hired a token person from any group to explain away any questioning.

The lesson to be learned is, assess your prospective employees based on merit, and equality will be achieved moving forward.