WIMBLEDON EQUAL PAY - “YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS”

27-06-2006

You can tell Wimbledon's here - it's raining. With equal predictability, the cry goes up for equal pay for women at the tournament. It's become almost an article of faith amongst right thinking people that a Venus Williams should get the same for winning as a Roger Federer. How easy it is to write off the Lawn Tennis Association as a bunch of blazered buffoons with their heads stuck in the Victorian era. The Stirrer sees it a different way.

We're nauseated by these self-obsessed millionaire athletes hijacking the language of gender equality to line their already well-stuffed pockets.

Fair pay for women toilet cleaners in the NHS - we're all for that.

Likewise a teacher who does a day at the chalk-face deserves as much as any man.

Let's have more women in the boardroom and politics too.

But female tennis players? Do me a favour.

By any measure they do less work than their male counterparts.

In a grand slam tournament it's three sets maximum for the women, whereas the blokes play five.

Any factory worker who demanded equal for only producing 60% as much as a colleague would be laughed out of the workplace.

TV audiences who generate so much of the wealth around tennis also demonstrably favour the mens' game.

No wonder. It's tougher, more competitive and has far greater strength in depth.

The Suffragettes surely didn't throw themselves under horses' hooves so that a few pampered women with bloated bank balances could earn a few extra bob.

If the likes and Williams and Sharapova really believe in their cause maybe they should go on strike - no doubt their high-profile supporter Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell will join them on the picket line.

Until then the words of the legendary John McEnrore should suffice.

Equal pay - “you cannot be serious.”