Guest post by Selwyn Duke of Blue State Conservative – Chutzpah, thy name is Megan Rapinoe. After losing 5-2 in 2017 to the Dallas FC Under-15 squad — yes, that would be boys with, in certain cases, high-pitched voices — Rapinoe and the rest of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNST) still want the men’s money.
The scene of Rapinoe’s latest descent into utter audacity was the White House, where Joe and Jill Biden had a roundtable discussion with USWNST members on Wednesday, which was “Equal Pay Day.”
For the uninitiated, know that this day isn’t devoted to equalizing the pay gap between whites and Asian-descent Americans (the latter make more), between Christians and Jews, between uncompensated pubescent boy soccer players and the wealthy female pros they beat, or any other groups. Rather, discriminating among the disparity phenomena, the focus is on just a specific one: the gap between men and women.
In fact, researchers point out that women are actually less likely to enter typically masculine fields (e.g., engineering) in highly egalitarian nations such as Norway than in more patriarchal ones such as India. Why? Because in wealthy lands women have the luxury of following their hearts as opposed to having to struggle to survive — and their hearts lead them to things feminine.
In reality, whatever the pay disparity, it’s explainable by way of market forces: We all get compensated to the degree to which we satisfy others’ wants. (And, yes, “others” don’t always want what they should; hence Cardi B being a millionaire. But that’s a topic for a different day.)
This is why female fashion models out-earn their male counterparts threefold and why heavyweight boxers out-earn lightweights — and it’s why men earn more than women.
It’s also why male soccer players generally command more pay than female ones. Note here that the men bring in far more revenue.
So, technically, the USWNST doesn’t earn less because they lost to 14-year-old boys. But that reality does reflect why they earn less: The market is more interested in seeing the best than a lesser league.
Yet while ignoring most other pay disparities, the world’s Rapinoes want the government to trump the market when it benefits them. This not only smacks of greed but actually hurts women. Why?
Read the rest here.
