Tennis Money Dispute Is Just Sexist

Whenever something like this comes up, this is my initial reaction:

The real title of this should have been simply ‘Rich Tennis Player Annoyed Because He Feels Threatened By Women’s Abilities In the Same Field.’

Novak Djokovic recently said that male tennis players should fight to earn more than women in prize money. Simply because of the number of viewers they have on TV. To add fuel to this abhorrent fire of sexism and male privilege, Chief Executive of Indian Wells, Raymond Moore, said that female tennis players ‘ride on the coat-tails’ of men.

Let’s not forget that Serena Williams, the award-winning tennis player, has won 21 grand slam titles, which is significantly more than Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

Moore added that “If I was a lady player, I’d go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they have carried this sport. They really have.” Yeah. Sure. Both male tennis players have fewer than 18 grand slam titles and Serena, a strong female player, has over 20. Sounds like bigotry to me!

Moore did apologise; however, by this point, the damage has already been done. Novak had some other similar words of wisdom to embark:

“I have tremendous respect for what women in global sport are doing and achieving. Their bodies are much different to men’s bodies. They have to go through a lot of different things that we don’t have to go through. You know, the hormones and different stuff, we don’t need to go into details.”

Is it just me or was he trying to talk about periods? As if that’s in anyway related to the sport. That when women are having difficulty on the field it’s due to “hormones”.

He also said, however, “I have had a woman that was my coach and that was a huge part of my tennis career. I’m surrounded by women. I’m very happy to be married with one and to have a child. I’m completely for women power.”

Before Moore’s apology, Serena Williams, 21 time grand-slam winner (yes, that bears repeating), had this to say.

“Obviously I don’t think any woman should be down on their knees thanking anybody like that. I don’t think that is a very accurate statement.”

No matter the sport, no matter the job, equal pay and prize money should be just that. If you exert yourself as much as the opposite gender at a job, you should be rewarded just as much.

Oh, and I’m just going to leave this here:

“Last year the women’s final at the US Open sold out well before the men. I’m sorry, did Roger play in that final or Rafa or any man play in a final that was sold out before the men’s final? I think not. There’s only one way to interpret that. Get on your knees, which is offensive enough, and thank a man, which is not – we, as women, have come a long way. We shouldn’t have to drop to our knees at any point.”

🙂