The US Women’s National Hockey Team and USA Hockey are locked in sensitive negotiations over pay and benefits, and the clock is ticking. …
The women say they will sit out the tournament unless progress is made.
The players say their case is about more than money. They want better job benefits for IIHF games — equal to those given to their male counterparts.
(CNN, March 24, 2017)
This pay dispute transcends sports. What’s more, it’s complicated, not least because it’s not the typical apples-to-apples case of women doing the same work as men, in the same workplace, for less pay.
Foremost, women Hockey players do not generate as much interest, let alone as much revenue, as their male counterparts. Which is why this is not just about discrimination – as the women players claim. It’s also about capitalism.
Indeed, nothing undermines their claims quite like women Tennis players getting equal pay because they generate as much interest and revenue as their male counterparts. What’s more, women Golf, Soccer, and Basketball players help make the case for unequal pay. For, like Hockey players, they do not get equal pay because they do not generate as much interest and revenue as the men in their sports, respectively.
No doubt deeply rooted cultural biases account for, explain, and perpetuate much of this discrepancy in pay:
Instead of commanding network coverage in primetime, like the men’s championship, the women’s was relegated to cable last night, which guaranteed only a fraction of the viewership. Yet the TV executives who are responsible for dissing women’s college Basketball in this fashion are the very ones who wonder why they can’t get better ratings for the fledgling women’s professional league – the WNBA.
Moreover, what does all of this say to female college athletes, as well as to young girls who we encourage to have the same interest in sports as young boys…? Frankly, it says that male chauvinism, sexism, and discrimination against women in sports not only still exist but are blithely tolerated.
Sorry girls.
(“NCAA Women’s Championship,” The iPINIONS Journal, April 8, 2009)
I clearly have a great deal of sympathy for the claims these women Hockey players are making, especially given that they have been almost as dominant over the years as women Soccer players. But I am constrained to interject that I have more sympathy for similar claims NCAA Division 1 Football players are making.
After all, NCAA Football players are generating as much interest and (almost as much) revenue as NFL Football players; yet they are getting NO pay. Which is why this is not amateurism – as the NCAA claims. It’s indentured servitude.
I’ve been decrying this manifest unfairness for years in such commentaries as “The Categorical Imperative to Pay College Athletes Just Got Stronger,” March 28, 2014, and “Salaries of College Coaches Reflect Enduring Master-Slave Relationships,” October 28, 2016.
All the same, I urge you to cheer for these women players against USA Hockey as if they were playing for the championship against their Canadian nemeses. Because they deserve all of the money and benefits they can get — even if it’s not equal to what their male counterparts are getting.
Apropos of which, I am heartened by the solidarity men in major professional sports are showing:
The US women’s national team, which is planning to boycott the women’s ice hockey world championships that begin Thursday in Plymouth, Mich., over a wage dispute with USA Hockey, received messages of support in recent days from the NHL Players’ Association, as well as the unions that represent NBA, NFL, MLB and WNBA players. On Sunday, Octagon agent Allan Walsh, whose clients include Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, tweeted that the US men’s national hockey team could also boycott the men’s world championships in a show of solidarity.
(Washington Post, March 26, 2017)
Even more notable, though, is that Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is leading a growing chorus of influential women calling on USA Hockey to do the right thing. Here is how she and 15 other female senators ended an open letter to the male executive director of USA Hockey, Dave Ogrean:
The US Women’s National Hockey Team has medaled in every Olympics since 1998, when Women’s Hockey was first added as an Olympic Sport. The team has won gold medals at the IIHF World Championships for the past three years in a row. As Megan (sic) Duggan, team captain, announced last week, the women’s team has ‘represented our country with dignity and deserves to be treated with fairness and respect.’
We urge you to resolve this dispute quickly to ensure that the USA Women’s National Hockey Team receives equitable resources. These elite athletes indeed deserve fairness and respect, and we hope you will be a leader on this issue as women continue to push for equality in athletics.
(Yahoo! Sports, March 27, 2017)
With all due respect to gestures of support from the men, I suspect pressure from these women – whose calls are going viral as I write this – will prove decisive.