Men getting paid more in athletics is reasonable

Thank you for opening up this debate Goodgame. I am going to argue that there is no justification for men in sport to be paid more than women, and my basic argument is this: men and women within sport are doing the same job. Firstly, male and female athletes train for the same amount of time. Male and female pro soccer players will officially train for the same amount of time per week (about 3 hours per day), and their matches are of equal length as men. We have to realise that both male and female athletes are doing this as their job, and therefore they need to be making money while they are at work in order to earn a living for themselves or their families. Therefore since they both are at work (i.e. competing or training) for the same amount of time per week, they justifiably should receive equal salaries since they are in the same jobs as men. You wouldn't expect a female secretary to earn less than a male secretary, because they are both in the same job. In fact there are laws which prohibit against unequal pay based on gender (Equal Pay Act 1963) The truth is that women put just as much time and effort into their athletic careers as men, and I know this from personal experience, having been a member of the Great Britain rowing team: often the women would push themselves harder than the men. Therefore should they not receive equal pay for working the same hours? Now my opponent may make the argument that women in tennis play less sets than men, and therefore do not play as much as men. However this is based firstly on the assumption that women are incapable of playing the full 5 sets, which is simply not true. Women play the same length soccer matches as men, and often end up scoring more goals. They run the same length marathons, so the fact that it is assumed they can't handle the full 5 sets is a sexist assumption. I therefore do not believe that women being paid less than men in sport can be justified by an argument which is based on a fundamentally unjustifiable point. Secondly, I feel the most major argument that my opponent will use to support his argument is that men's sport is watched far more than women's sport (in most cases). This is an indisputable fact, and really it is the key reason why men do earn more in sport than women: there's simply more money in men's sport. In fact, in sports where there is equal interest in both the male and female sides, pay is often equal. Tennis is a very good example of this, in fact. Now I don't dispute the argument that, even if you think women should be paid equally as men in sport, there simply isn't enough money in the system for it to be possible. However I do not believe this is a justifiable reason, as the title of the debate states, for not paying women the same as men, because the men and women are still doing the same job. Just because men can be paid more than women doesn't mean it is right or justifiable for them to receive more pay. The reason why more people watch men's sport is because there is a perception that it is more intense, more exciting and ultimately more entertaining. However in all the sports I have watched - both male and female - I have never personally found this to be the case. Moreover, when I bring friends who don't think women's sport is as interesting as men's sport to women's rugby matches, they actually enjoy themselves a huge amount, and when I ask them if they found it any less entertaining they say it was as enjoyable as watching men's sport. Now I know this is a very personal example, but I feel it is a shared opinion of women's sport when compared with men's sport: that it is as entertaining, however it just doesn't receive the same viewer-base or interest, as male sport has a more long-standing place in society. Therefore, since evidence proves that women's sport with as much viewing as men's sport is equally profitable for the athletes, and that there is a perception in society that women's sport is less entertaining because they are women and "not as strong as men" (an inherently sexist argument), I once again believe this is not a justifiable reason for women receiving less pay than men in sports, since the argument upon which it is based [women's sport is less interesting for people in society] is itself unjustifiable. Athletes of all genders should receive the same pay (within their individual sports), because they are doing the same job, regardless of perceptions about whether one gender is stronger or faster or better than the other. And I would just like to clarify that an argument claiming it is justifiable which is based off an unjustifiable precedent cannot be justified as water-tight.