Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Accountability to Principles of Gender Equity

At Sporting Intelligence my first column of 2015 is up. It was inspired by several things, including Venus Vs., a documentary on prize equity in grand slam tennis which I show in my Sports Governance class. Most recently however I was inspired (well, shocked really) by this blog post by Helen Wyman, a British professional cyclist. 

Here is an excerpt from my piece:
Today, the issue of equal pay for men and women in sport is more about accountability than gender. So long as sports organizations like the IOC and UCI invoke equality as a guiding principle, then they should be held to those principles.

That is not a matter of gender equality, it is simply a matter of good governance. Alternatively, if the leaders of these organizations actually believe that women should receive smaller purses for their competitions, then these leaders should have the courage to change the stated principles of the organisations that they lead to reflect those beliefs. Saying one thing and doing another is not a successful course of action for any institution.
I argue that gender equity in pay is really not much about gender anymore, but rather, about good governance. You can read the whole thing here.

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