The Fight for Equality in Sports: Venus Williams’ Powerful Message

In 2007, Venus Williams stood in a meeting full of Grand Slam executives, asked them to close their eyes and said emotionally: “Imagine that you are a little girl. You’re growing up. You train as hard as you can, with girls, with boys. Do you have a dream. You fight, you work, you sacrifice to get to this stage. You work harder than anyone you know. And when you get it, they tell you that you are not the same as a child, that you do not deserve the same.” Venus Williams had enough background to…

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In 2007, Venus Williams stood in a meeting full of Grand Slam executives, asked them to close their eyes and said emotionally: “Imagine that you are a little girl. You’re growing up. You train as hard as you can, with girls, with boys. Do you have a dream. You fight, you work, you sacrifice to get to this stage. You work harder than anyone you know. And when you get it, they tell you that you are not the same as a child, that you do not deserve the same.” Venus Williams had enough baggage to appear in a meeting full of men in suits and deliver a phrase that seems taken from a Hollywood tearjerker, if not from a motivational mug. But beyond her talent, there was an unquestionable reality about her story: her games were more viewed than those of many of her male colleagues.

The cliché that they were of less interest was annulled by their mere presence; she herself was the most eloquent demonstration. Rafael Nadal fell into that stereotype again a few days ago when he said that he believes in equal opportunities, but not in equal pay. “I’m not a hypocrite. I don’t want to say things that are easy for me to say, but I don’t think. The investment for me should be the same for men and women. The opportunities, the same. And the salaries. The same? No,” he stated in an interview in La Sexta. We must recognize Nadal’s iron fidelity to his convictions, that almost Spartan way with which he always deploys his arguments. But Nadal used, again, a tricky argument. Because the root of the problem is not what women are paid, a historically sustained cliché about direct physical comparisons and media interest: the root of the problem is the basis on which they have to capitalize on their talent.

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When we put equal pay at the center of the debate, we dilute all the little things that enable it, especially wildly unequal marketing and promotion. If investment and opportunities were the same, as Nadal mentioned, salaries potentially would be the same as well. Last Friday the women’s soccer team played the semifinal of the Final Four in La Cartuja, that stadium where you want to register your enemies, a stadium so unbeatable that it even houses a Crossfit center. Sandra Riquelme tells ‘Relevo’ that while in France, where the other semi-final was played, tickets went on sale on December 20, in Spain they went on sale on February 12, a few days before the match, with a website that worked in fits and starts and with hardly any promotion.

It is easy to imagine that if the men’s team had played its qualification for the Olympic Games in Seville, the Federation would have filled the city with posters on marquees, banners on streetlights and glossy claims. Women’s football shines despite decades of public disinterest, institutional rejections and a crippling lack of funding. It shines despite the fact that women have little or no power, voice or influence within decision-making structures. It seems that some athletes live with the delirious feeling that equality in sports has already been achieved, with the Rubiales case almost surpassed by the media. It’s all done now. Others directly believe that equality is an unjust cause, a demagogic and opportunistic postulate. It seems that talking about equality in sport, and in any field in general, has become a clumsy, tiresome and apathetic claim these days. We’re not even in extra time.

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2024-02-26 04:15:00
#Equality #sport #Nadal #Sports