Tennis star Novak Djokovic recently commented ‘Male tennis players should earn more prize money as compared to their female counter parts’. This comment raked up the much debated subject of gender equality. His logic is simple. Since it is the men’s sport that ‘sells more tickets’, it undoubtedly deserves more remuneration.
This reminds me of basic wage inequality theory, that was prevalent even 100 years ago – a woman earned about 70 cents for every dollar that a man would earn, while working in an agricultural farm. Both then and now, the logic seems to be consistent. Higher the productivity (aka. impact), higher the economic incentive.
So what could be the answer to bridge this gap? Should women push themselves even harder to match men? That would not be fair to them! Or should they get a ‘more-than-a-fair-chance’? Again, that would be unfair to the men!
To me, the answer lies in changing our perspective towards the gender stereotyping. The battle of the sexes needs to cease. Why should one be overly concerned whether a task is being accomplished by a man or a woman?
After all, in today’s world, how much of gender specific effort do we really require in our personal or professional lives? If we take a moment to retrospect our day-to-day activities, isn’t a large part of it more or less gender neutral? Right from earning the bread for family, to winning a sales deal, running the house with minimal expenses, to managing a project within the budgets; or even planning for your child’s future, to crafting a business strategy, needs no gender specific qualities. I am sure you wouldn’t have used hardcore muscle power at work (no matter however badly you wanted to), unless you are a boxer in the ring or a bouncer at a bar!
From this perspective, if we look at most of the fields – IT, finance, healthcare, media, teaching, the list goes on; clearly skill-sets rule over the muscle power. Even industries that traditionally required endurance are now being gender-neutralized with technology.
Today, neither do we use horseback riding as a means of transportation nor does one need to be a Spartan to win wars. Even weapons of mass destruction need sophisticated tech-skills underpinned by sheer intelligence (although perverse, it still remains a fact!). Haven’t we moved away from caves thousands of years ago?
Is it thus time to realize that it is not enough to just push women to match the so called might of a man, or taunt men to start thinking from a woman’s perspective! Of course, I am not saying that gender is irrelevant. (More about it for later discussion.) While men and women may differ physically, biologically or even emotionally, these in today’s context of life, are limited to specific pockets.
Coming back to Djokovic, instead of speaking about pay differential, if he could use his genius to communicate what it takes to make a sport more inclusive, we may someday see a world class tennis match between Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic. Or even may be a Mithali Raj alongside Mahendra Singh Dhoni in cricket?
Interestingly, last week, West Indies has bagged both the Men’s as well as Women’s Cricket World T20 title, probably a sign indicating that ‘Men are no more from Mars and Women are a lot more than Venus’?
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