Gilles Simon Says Women Tennis Players Shouldn't Earn As Much As Men

Pretty awful article in the Huffington Post regarding equal pay for tennis players.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/27/gilles-simon-women-tennis-players_n_1630126.html?utm_hp_ref=women&ir=Women

WIMBLEDON, England — Roger Federer avoided wading into the subject of equal prize money for men and women at Grand Slams events.

After his second-round victory at Wimbledon on Wednesday, Federer was asked about comments by 13th-seeded Gilles Simon of France, who is on the ATP Player Council and said men should be paid more than women at tennis tournaments.

"I hope it doesn't become a big issue during Wimbledon. It's obviously a debate that's out there ever since, I guess, the Slams have made equal prize money. There's nothing you can do, anyway, about it," Federer replied.

"It's just a matter of who believes what, and then that is an endless debate. So whatever you believe," he continued.

Simon told reporters at Wimbledon in French that he thinks "men's tennis is ahead of women's tennis" and "men spend twice as long on court as women do at Grand Slams."

He also said men "provide a more attractive show" in their matches.

All four Grand Slam tournaments pay equal prize money to men and women, something Simon said he doesn't think "works in sports."

In a statement released Wednesday via a WTA spokesman, the CEO of the women's tour, Stacey Allaster, said: "Tennis, including the Grand Slams, is aligned with our modern, progressive society when it comes to the principle of equality. I can't believe in this day and age that anyone can still think otherwise. This type of thinking is exactly why the WTA was founded and we will always fight for what's right."

The All England Club began paying women the same as men in 2007, one year after the French Open started giving the same prize money to the men's and women's singles champions. The other two Grand Slam tournaments, the U.S. Open and Australian Open, already had been doing that for years.
When Wimbledon started paying players when the professional Open era came in 1968, women's champion Billie Jean King took home a little more than a third of what was earned by men's champion Rod Laver.

"It's always been talked about, but we (have) different physiques, as well. I think we earn our money, as well," 2008 French Open champion Ana Ivanovic said after winning in three sets Wednesday. "I mean, I was out there 2 1/2 hours today."

At the Grand Slam tournaments, men play best-of-five-set matches; women play best-of-three.
At most other events, all matches for both genders are best-of-three.

"It is tough for the guys, especially at Wimbledon, because it's five sets. At all the other tournaments it should be the same," said Heather Watson, the first British woman since 2002 to reach the third round at the All England Club. "We play the same amount of sets and have to work just as hard."
Simon was elected last weekend to a two-year term on the ATP Player Council. Federer, a 16-time Grand Slam champion, was elected to a third term.

Similar to Federer, U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur called the topic "a debate that's never going to finish."

But she also took a stance on equal pay.

"I think we deserve it. I think people come out and watch us play because they want to watch us play. I think there are a bunch of men's matches that go five (sets) that are pretty boring to watch, as well. It's not like a best-of-five match is better than a best-of-three, I don't think," Stosur said.
"I don't think the duration means it's better," she added. "You want good quality."

One female player asked about Simon's comments, 19-year-old American Sloane Stephens, said: "I don't care what he says about anything. He hit me with a ball the first time I was a ball kid. He hit me in the chest, because he lost a point and lost the set. He turned around and slammed the ball with his racket and hit me ... and I've never spoken to him since then."

Thank You, Title IX

"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity."

Title IX was enacted 40 years ago this year in 1972.  Because of it, countless females have had the opportunity to participate in athletics in schools across the nation.  Without it, this simply wouldn't be the case.

ESPN's recently-launched sports website dedicated to women's sports, ESPNW, has been counting down the top 40 female athletes of the past 40 years.  Mia Hamm, one of these incredible role models and possibly the greatest American female soccer player ever, was recently announced as #1 on ESPNW's list.

This list of chock full of incredible athletes, incredible role models, and most importantly, incredible women that girls (and boys) could and should look up to. I would advise anyone to read through, or even skim through, the whole list.  You'll feel nothing but inspired by doing so.

ESPNW's list is linked here.

Does Gender Equality Produce Income Inequality?

Equality and the End of Marrying Up

By KATRIN BENNHOLD

NY Times, Published June 12, 2012

LONDON — When the daughter of a former flight attendant married the future king of England last year, some starry-eyed monarchists cooed over a 21st-century Cinderella.

But the royal wedding of Kate Middleton to Prince William was exceptional in more than one way. The postwar phenomenon of “marrying up” is becoming as archaic as the curtsy the Duchess of Cambridge is still expected to do before her mother-in-law. These days, women tend to marry men from the same socioeconomic class, recent statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development suggest. (Indeed, a growing proportion is marrying down.)

That raises a vexing question: Does gender equality produce income inequality?

Women were long inadvertent but key drivers of social mobility. Marrying the boss was one way for the secretary to escape her social background and lift her offspring into a higher stratum of income, networks and cultural sophistication.

As women have overtaken men in education and are catching up with them in the job market, the rise of what sociologists and economists call assortative mating — people picking spouses with similar educational achievements and incomes — has been pronounced.

Today, across the member countries of the O.E.C.D., 40 percent of couples in which both partners work belong to the same or a neighboring earnings bracket, compared with 33 percent two decades ago, a 2011 report by the agency shows. Nearly two-thirds of couples have the same level of educational attainment (in 15 percent of the cases, the wife is more educated than her husband).

Doctors used to marry nurses. Now doctors marry doctors.

So while husbands and wives have become more equal, inequality between families appears to be on the rise. As Christine R. Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, puts it: “Marriages are increasingly likely to consist of two high- or two low-earning partners,” rather than of one of each.

Looking at data on married couples in the United States from 1967 to 2005, Dr. Schwartz found that increases in general earnings inequality over that period would have been between 25 percent and 30 percent lower in the absence of more assortative mating.

Potentially widening the gap between rich and poor families further is the fact that women nearer the top of the income distribution have increased their hours of paid work relatively more than women nearer the bottom.

That’s explosive stuff, particularly at a time of recession and austerity, when rising income inequality is in the spotlight anyway and the temptation of populism fierce.

The trouble is that while marriage patterns are among the most powerful drivers of social mobility, there is very little you can do about them. Women now earn about 60 percent of all graduate degrees in rich countries. Of course they are more likely to marry men of similar educational background; they meet them at college.

“Relationships are not policy material,” said Willem Adema, a social policy specialist at the O.E.C.D. “You have no real lever in this area.”

So does gender equality inevitably foster greater income inequality?

Not necessarily.

One nuance is that while assortative mating has raised inequality, female labor market participation has actually lowered it, on average outweighing the effect across the O.E.C.D. The widening gulf between male earnings at the top and the bottom of the income distribution due to falling work hours and fast technological change helps explain why inequality on balance still grew.

Secondly, more gender equality creates greater economic resources not just within families but also at the government level: More and more educated women in work mean a more productive economy and greater tax revenues, thus over time providing politicians with additional financial muscle to give children of poorer families an extra boost.

The policy challenge then is to decide on the most effective way to level the playing field for the next generation.

In Britain, where social mobility is lower and income differences are greater than in most other European countries — and where a bout of youth rioting last August added urgency to the issue — Prime Minister David Cameron recently introduced a controversial pilot program of parenting classes.

In three areas of the country, parents of children under the age of 6 now get £100, or about $155, in vouchers they can redeem for training on anything from “teething to tantrums,” and crucially, communicating with their babies.

“It’s ludicrous that we should expect people to train for hours to drive a car or use a computer, but when it comes to looking after a baby, we tell people to just get on with it,” said Mr. Cameron, himself a father of three. “I would have loved more guidance when my children were babies.”

Critics say the proposal smacks of a nanny state wading too deeply into family affairs. They question whether a wide cross section of parents is ready to take up the classes (which so far have been associated with court orders on parents of unruly children). To minimize stigmatization, the vouchers are deliberately available at Boots, the ubiquitous drugstore chain, among other places.

Mr. Adema of the O.E.C.D., who has studied work-life balance and child poverty across Europe and beyond, says that promoting parenting activities that contribute to child development like talking and reading to toddlers might be a relatively low-cost way of helping to narrow the cognitive gap between children of different backgrounds before they start primary school.

But, he stressed, it is no substitute for widely available and affordable child care. “This could be complementary to formal child care,” he said. “It won’t do the trick on its own.”

It’s hard to sell Scandinavian-style preschools — available to all children above the age of 1 and heavily subsidized — to cash-strapped governments elsewhere in Europe. But it would almost certainly be a lucrative long-term investment.

As Mr. Cameron said himself: “Parents are nation-builders.”

U.S. Women In 20s Less Likely To Get Pregnant Or Have Abortion

Interesting article in the Huffington Post regarding women having babies less in their 20's and more in their 30's and 40's.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/20/us-women-in-20s-less-like_n_1610993.html?utm_hp_ref=women&ir=Women

By Alex Dobuzinskis

June 20 (Reuters) - Pregnancy rates for U.S. women in their early 20s fell nearly 18 percent from 1990 to 2008 and their abortion rate dropped by 32 percent, as those women delayed the decision to have a baby and used more effective birth control, said a government report released on Wednesday.

The findings for women in their prime child bearing years mirror similar studies showing declines in pregnancies and abortions among teenagers.

The report from the National Center for Health Statistics stated that in 2008, the pregnancy rate for the 20 to 24 age group was 163 per 1,000 women. By comparison, in 1990 that demographic had a pregnancy rate of 198.5 per 1,000, which was nearly 18 percent higher than in 2008.

Pregnancy rates for women between the ages of 25 and 29 fell a more modest 6 percent during the same time period, to 167.9 per 1,000, according to statistics in the report.

The abortion rate also declined among women in their early 20s, to 38.4 per 1,000 women in 2008 from 56.7 per 1,000 in 1990, the report said. That represented a drop of 32 percent.

Again, the drop was more modest for women in their late 20s, as their abortion rate fell to 28.6 per 1,000 in 2008, from 33.9 per 1,000 in 1990, the report said.

A report by the Guttmacher Institute released in February, based on government statistics, showed the teen abortion rate was down 59 percent in 2008 compared with 1988, and that in 2008 the teen pregnancy rate had fallen 42 percent compared to 1990.

The new report extends some of those trends to women who are beyond their teenage years.

"It's not just the teens. Abortion rates are down across the board," said Stephanie Ventura, an author of the National Center for Health Statistics report, which is titled "Estimated Pregnancy Rates and Rates of Pregnancy Outcomes for the United States, 1990-2008."

While the pregnancy rates are down for teens and women in their 20s, they are up for women in their 30s and 40s, the report found. That is consistent with previous research.

Women between 40 and 44 had a dramatic increase in pregnancy rates of nearly 65 percent from 1990 to 2008, the report said. There were 18.8 pregnancies per 1,000 women in that age group in 2008, compared with 11.4 per 1,000 in 1990.

Women in their 20s are "postponing pregnancy," Ventura said.

Another reason for the decrease in pregnancies among younger women is more effective birth control methods, including the combined use of condoms and other methods such as contraceptive patches that release hormones, she said.

"If the pregnancy rates are down, including both births and abortion rates, that would show more efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies," Ventura said.

The report said that overall for all age groups in 2008, 65 percent of pregnancies ended in a live birth in 2008, 18 percent in an abortion and 17 percent in fetal loss. In 1990, 61 percent of pregnancies ended in a live birth and 24 percent were aborted, with 15 percent resulting in fetal loss. (Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

"Another v-word that Must Not Be Named. Like Voldemort"

Yesterday, a female Democratic legislator in the Michigan House of Representatives used the word "vagina" (in my opinion, in a non-obscene way) on the House floor while arguing an extremely strict and concerning anti-abortion law.  As punishment for whatever the sin was that she committed, she and her constituents have effectively been silenced, as she has been banned indefinitely from speaking on the House floor.  In their supposed attempt to rid the House floor of "offensive" language, House Republicans seem as though they're simply trying to silence their opposition; and isn't that strange, their opposition happens to be a woman who could be affected by this scary anti-abortion law.  As an article from Jezebel puts it, "Apparently, during Michigan's War on Women, ladies aren't even allowed to serve in combat."

Linked here is the article from Jezebel that I feel has some great commentary on the matter (warning: there are some choice words in the article).

The Wage Gap Continues

Paycheck Fairness for Women Bill Stumbles in Senate


June 5, 2012

By Ana Radelat
CTMirror.org

Washington -- A bill that aims to close the wage gap between men and women -- an issue championed by Rep. Rosa DeLauro for years -- failed on a procedural vote in the Senate Tuesday.


But the defeat of the "paycheck fairness" bill -- the result of its unanimous rejection by Senate Republicans -- is not a total loss for DeLauro, D-3rd District, who will try to use the loss to argue that Republicans are dismissing the concerns of women.

The skirmish over the bill, which would bar employers from retaliating against workers who complain about pay disparities, is the latest attempt by Democrats in an election year to portray the GOP as hostile to women.

"It is shameful that within the past week Republicans in both chambers of Congress have denied us the opportunity to even debate the Paycheck Fairness Act, to say nothing of having an actual vote on it," DeLauro said.

Besides denying Democrats the 60 votes needed in the Senate to move the bill forward -- today's vote was 52-47 -- Republicans thwarted a Democratic attempt to bring the paycheck fairness bill for a vote in the House last week.

Republicans said they also wanted to end pay discrimination and offered an alternative bill, sponsored by Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev. That bill also protects women who gather information at their workplace about salary disparities, but it does not contain other provisions in the Democratic bill.

"Let me be clear, pay discrimination based on gender is unacceptable," said Heller on the floor of the Senate before the vote. "Despite the political rhetoric around here, everyone agrees on this fact. The question is, will the Paycheck Fairness Act actually address workplace inequality? And the simple answer is no."

The Republican alternative was ignored in the Democratic-majority Senate.

The Democratic legislation would allow women to sue their employers for punitive damages if they find evidence of broad differences in wages or benefits received by male and female workers, and it would make it easier for women who face paycheck discrimination to file class action lawsuits. It would also allow women to apply for federal grants to gather information on wage inequity in their workplace.

Republicans argued that these provisions would unleash a torrent of baseless lawsuits.

DeLauro and other supporters of the Paycheck Fairness Act say women make an average of 77 cents to every dollar earned by a man and that the paycheck fairness bill would help end that disparity.

Approval of the bill is needed to help women cope with economic pressures, she said, noting that it builds upon federal equal pay laws.

"Underlying the financial pressures women face today is the very fact they are paid 77 cents on the dollar," DeLauro said. "They are the breadwinners and the co-breadwinners. They can't afford this economic pressure."

At an impromptu news conference outside the Senate chamber Tuesday, DeLauro and other Democratic women House members joined Lilly Ledbetter, who, in 1998, sued her longtime employer, Goodyear Tire, for paycheck discrimination. She was denied a win by the Supreme Court because she had exceeded the statute of limitations to bring her case.

Congress reacted by approving a bill to extend that statute of limitations.

DeLauro said she is confident the paycheck fairness act will prevail, despite the deadlocked Congress.

"I had the honor of introducing the legislation 15 years ago and we are that close," she said, pinching two fingers together.

Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., voted for the bill Tuesday.

In a floor speech before the vote, Blumenthal said mothers in Connecticut, on the average, earn 40 percent of their family's income.

"The question before this body is, 'Are women worth less than men?'" Blumenthal asked, "And the answer today, and every day, should be 'no.' "