Men and women who has the upper hand?

by Chelsie Darrow

As we all know, women have never really had equal rights with men. Starting back in the early 1800s, women have been a lower class. Times have changed, you say? Well, think again. One wouldn’t have to look as far as a Friday night basketball game here at Pittsford to see the huge difference. The bleachers here are overflowing with kids piling out into the hallways to see the game. You go to a girls game and it just simply is not the same. “The guys have more funding and support in all of the sports, not just basketball, but that is the most noticed. Everyone is expected to go to a guy’s basketball game but if it’s a girl’s game it really doesn’t matter if you attend or not. It worsened to situation when they moved girls basketball to be at the same time as boys basketball,” expressed sophomore Keely Sanders, an avid sports player and fan here at Pittsford.

Kobe Bryant makes a spectacular $216,082.32 per game (based on an 82 game schedule). The highest paid NBA player is Kevin Garnett. He will make, this year, an astounding $24,751,934 dollars! While on the contrary, the highest a WNBA rookie can make only $100,000. Some even made as little as $30,000! The only good thing that can come out of this for the ladies is that they can play in more then one league in a year, meaning the women go play overseas during the WNBA off-season in an effort to make more money. But even with that, their salaries fall ridiculously short of their NBA counterparts. Even though the NBA and the WNBA play the same amount of games in a regular season (82 games) the women’s salaries are noticeably eclipsed by the NBA stars profits.

Not only are the pay cuts sexist for the basketball players but they are also unfair in the LPGA and the PGA. The LPGA women are paid $585,000 for winning the U.S. Open, while the men earn over twice as much as the women, as the top price is worth $1.3 million dollars for the same event. That’s a huge pay difference and is quite unfair.

Not all professional sports are unfair to women. In tennis they are quite fair, with the U.S Open, Australian Open, and Wimbledon all having equal purses. The French Open is unfair to woman because they only earn $998,000 thousand for taking first. On the other hand the men take home over a cool million racking in $1.02 million, so despite the difference being small, it’s not quite fair.

Most people say the pay difference is because guys are more competitive than girls and that its in their nature. Sophomore Abbie Brackman agrees with this opinion. “I don’t think the sports are equal at all but, I also think that guys get most of the attention in sport because (to me) they are more interesting and more intense to watch. That’s why they have more fans and get more attention,” explained Abbie. Is it really a competitive edge that keeps men in higher wages than women? I guess it’s really a matter of opinion.

So the next time that you get ready to go to a game, remember that girls sports are just as important as guys. Don’t pretend like we don’t notice the big fan difference that our sports have from yours. It’s very degrading and there is no reason for the salary differences, either. Women are just as equal and should be treated so.