What would you say to those people who argue that the Brazil WNT shouldn’t be paid the same as the men because they do not bring in the same revenue? I’ve heard some say that they should be paid the same because they do the same job. But wouldn’t that mean every person who does the same job (engineer, doctor, singer, actor, etc) should also be paid the same? I love woso so much so I was wondering your opinion on this and how to respond to these kinds of people.
I guess I'd say considering the context (societal, historical context and investment) revenue is the wrong measure of success and that the factors that impact revenue are largely out of female players control.
Let's take the example of two nurses working 40 hours a week in the same hospital. One treats patients with stage 4 cancer and one stage 1 cancer patients. Everyone would agree it would be unfair to pay them based on the % of their patients who survived right? The factors that influence the outcome are not equal and are beyond the nurses control and so equal outcomes cannot be expected. Even if they both work equally hard and have similar experience and education one nurse is set up to "fail" if you measure success for the nurse in this manner.
Now let's consider I own two food trucks in Nebraska. The hot dog truck has been in business for 20 years, is well known in our city with loyal customers who eat their daily. The taco truck opened a month ago. Over the last 20 years I've sunk thousands and thousands of dollars into advertising my hot dog stand. It's been featured in print media, tv ads, social media and radio. The only advertising I did for the taco store was one sign at a local mall. The hot dog stand has a prime location with a high volume of people walking by and no other food trucks for 10 blocks. I also pay extra to park it outside concerts, at state fairs and at sports games. The taco truck I park in a residential suburb with very little foot traffic, next door to a popular Mexican restaurant. Now let's say I decide to pay the staff based on the amount of revenue the truck they work at brings in. Unfair right? The circumstances are completely different because I've invested in the hot dog stand for decades and I give it opportunities I don't provide the taco store so I cant expect the same revenue.
In both examples the measure of success is wrong because they may be equally hard working and talented but are not paid equally. In fact the taco truck dishwasher may work harder than those at the hot dog stand where there are multiple dishwashers and fewer utensils and pans to clean. Maybe the nurse working with the patients with stage four cancer has a terrible bed side manner and regularly comes in late or is lazy. Further the staff can't choose which truck to work in, or patients to treat so I shouldn't penalise the employees for this.
What if instead I measured success based on hours worked with a bonus element based on specific performance indicators (such as compliance with health and safety factors and customer satisfaction) that was uniform across both food trucks/all nurses? Wouldn't I have fairer outcomes?
Womens soccer is the taco truck. It needs to be given opportunities and investment to flourish. If we just gave it a chance it would probably do equally as well as the hot dog stand, in some places and circumstances even better. In some ways it could already be out performing the hot dog stand. We've just been looking at the wrong measure.
PS. The US taco truck is already beating the US hot dog stand on revenue too cause let's be real...tacos are delicious.
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