I support equal pay for equal work

Today is International Women's Day. I was brought up believing that women could do anything that men could and vice-versa. Apart from the obvious of course, I was never much use at breast-feeding. At the primary and grammar schools me and Mrs H went to (yes, we went to the same schools) no difference was drawn between girls and boys in any subject apart from PE. There were as many girls as boys in the science sets - and no-one thought it anything other than normal - and there was a boy in the  'O' level cookery class. The only thing we found odd was that, 20 years later when Mrs H was teaching some people found it surprising.

And the company I was a director of was correctly meticulous in ensuring there was no gender pay gap for equivalent work, at least a decade ago.

So now I'm going to be a party pooper and risk a load of feminist opprobrium by saying equal pay for equal work is only right, moral and justifiable where the "work" really is the same. This rules out nearly all sport and much of entertainment.

I've been meaning to write this piece for some time, after reading a piece on equal pay in the Times a while back*, prompted by the news that the Norwegian FA is paying its women's international team the same as its mens'. This got me thinking. Leaving aside the obvious point that these aren't employees so aren't covered by employment law, how is that the same job? OK, much of the "role profiles" would read the same. So the goalkeeper needs to try to stop the ball going in the goal, play a lead role in organising the defence, be able to initiate play and concentrate for ninety minutes. So is the Norwegian women's goalkeeper as "good" (you could say "valuable") as the men's? It's unlikely that she is as good at goalkeeping. Hasn't got the chance to prove it I hear you say? Well OK but it's also plainly the case that, at the moment, the Norwegian men's team contributes more financially from gate receipts, TV money and sponsorship than the women's.

And the Norwegian male footballers view? Apparently, Andy Murray-ish, they have agreed to effectively subsidise the women by taking a pay cut. (Murray is a strong advocate of equal pay for women in the major tennis tournaments). It is tennis that has been in the front line of this debate for years because of the simple fact that the men's matches at major tournaments are best of a gruelling 5 sets while the women's are best of 3, whereas men's and women's football matches both last for 90 minutes.

There's no reason for men and women to play for different durations other than, I guess, a prejudice about the "weaker sex" as I remember women being called in decades past. Men are stronger, of course: I once read that 99% of men are stronger than 50% of women. But men do not have better stamina: recent research has proven that women have much greater muscle endurance**.  A conclusion was that, while men are faster and stronger so complete marathons in shorter times, women are "less exhausted". It was suggested that, if there were "ultra-ultra marathons" women would dominate. However, as all this was based on tests involving 200 flexes of the foot, I wouldn't believe implicitly that the extrapolation is necessarily valid.

So there's no reason why women shouldn't play 5 sets like the men. Except, because the women's game doesn't have the depth of good players of the men's game, there would probably be a lot of boring, overly long, straight sets matches.

Some brave males have recently been contesting the equal pay in tennis. Novak Djokovic thinks the men should be paid more, even in the 'Slam' tournaments like Wimbledon, where pay has been equal for a decade. His case is based on viewing figures. At least one brave journalist agrees with him***.

And so today there has been a Twitter storm caused by the Indian cricket board publishing stats which show their men get paid 14 times as much as the women****.

While several contributors make my point about the revenue discrepancy between men and women in Indian cricket, many others say the women 'deserve' equal pay. This is easily resolved. Separate the male and female 'tours', to use a golf or tennis term, pay them all the same flat rate - the current women's rate let's say - and pay a bonus based on revenue raised (tv, gate and sponsorship money). That's fair and equitable, if not equal, isn't it?

After all, performing in front of larger live and tv audiences - by several orders of magnitude - means the 'job weight' for the men, against the same qualitative 'job description' is very much higher.

I don't know why the BBC didn't use this argument in the Carrie Gracie case. It seems self evident to me that the BBC USA and EU correspondent roles (one occupied by a man, the other a woman) are much more demanding than the China correspondent role Gracie occupied. They both carry far more screen time and are much likelier to involve no notice, live reporting on a current crisis. Yes the roles have the identical job descriptions but they are not the same job and would never come out the same on any credible scoring system. If the BBC didn't allow for different job weights against the same role profile they are even more incompetent than I thought. If they did and haven't said so, they are even more stupidly politically correct than I thought.

Which is not to say that the BBC didn't or doesn't have a problem. It clearly does, it's just that not all (or perhaps many) of the particular women making a noise have much of a case in my view.

TV and film entertainment is not straight forward but I thought it was interesting and (old fashioned concept alert) chivalrous that Paul Newman gave some of his fee to Susan Sarandon when he found she wasn't included in the director's 'equal pay for equal billing' promise with Newman and Hackman in a 1990s film. Equal billing should of course mean equal pay.

So I am 100% for equal pay for the same work, wherever it exists. But Gracie's job wasn't the same as Sopel's and, while the Indian women cricketers 'jobs' may be more equivalent to the men's one day, they simply aren't the same now.

The problem with these contentious cases is that they distract and detract from the still too large number of cases where women are doing exactly the same job as men and are, illegally, not being paid as much by their employer. Disgracefully many of these cases are in the public sector. Why am I not surprised? Because if you're inefficient you'll be inefficient at most things, amazingly even this particular thing. Management in those cases deserve to feel the full weight of the law and public opprobrium.

Come on women. Get on the cases that matter - the ordinary workers, not the ridiculous self serving claims of tv presenters and sports 'stars', most of whom we've never heard of. Then I'll be right with you.

*https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/why-norways-fa-are-wrong-to-pay-women-same-as-men-7sq65xch

**Many sites covered a University of British Columbia study in August 2017, e.g. The Independent, Women have more stamina and muscle endurance than men, study suggests, 25 August 2017

***Metro article 21 March 2016 Novak Djokovic is right! Male tennis players do deserve to be paid more than female stars

****Gender pay gap in cricket angers Indians. BBC website 8 March 2018