Can You Explain This?

It's not equality. I didn't know marathons combined men and women's times. Usually they have completely separate prizes. I expect a lot of people to call for an end to the head start.

Professor- Men make more money than women because more people watch men's sports, which brings in more sponsors, which means more money for the athletes. It's not the same thing. Women's tennis players make the same money as the men most of the time, and they only play best 2 out of 3 instead of 3 out of 5. Technically, they're getting paid the same for less work. So all sports don't pay women less. The WNBA will never pay nearly the same as the NBA because nobody watches the WNBA.

Professor again, if you come back to read this- Not all men's sports pay the same either. The NFL pays a lot more than Major League Soccer, David Beckham excluded. NASCAR pays more than Indy racing. It's ad money again. Nobody complains about that.

Also most women's sports seasons are shorter than the men's so they're still not doing the same amount of work.

When I said "It's not the same thing," I really meant the gender differences weren't the same thing as the marathon issue. After re-reading my post, I can see where you made that assumption that I meant men's and women's sports weren't the same. Although in some cases they're not the same thing, see my comments about tennis and the WNBA.

I don't really support paying women athletes less for the same amount of work, but when they bring in so little ad money I really can't support paying them the same either. Ad money drives professional sports, and college/amateur sports to an extent. Athletes in sports where more advertising money goes get paid more.

Back to the original post, I don't support the marathon deal because she was said to be in the same race as the men; when she really got a head start. The article even says it was advertised as a man-vs.-woman race. It was a sham through and through. I see your point about men's and women's sports, but this isn't the same thing no matter how you look at it.

O Sikander, O Sikander O Sikander, Jhaank Le Jhaank Le Apne Dil Ke Andar from Corporate

how much was the new car. perhaps the price of the car plus the 20K totaled to the same amount as the 100K. Perhaps the woman won the same thing but instead of taking the car she decided to take the car value for it instead. Perhaps she broke the female record time and the man didn't break the male record time, and breaking the time record allows one to receive a bigger prize. You need more information in order to make an accurate analysis of the situation.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AiVgT...

She got a 20 minute head start. This is what qualifies as Equality according to the media. You needed to read further down the article. Yes they are giving Women a head start of 20 minutes to make it "Fair". This is the Feminist idea of equality.

If you read the article carefully, they BOTH received $20K and a new car for placing first in their respective divisions.

That appears perfectly equal to me.

The $100K was some sort of additional bonus.

You'd have to contact the event organizers to explain what the bonus is for. My guess is it was related to the entertainment value of the race.

But apparently, this marketing ploy was very effective, since it is being discussed in forums like this one.

EDIT:

Excerpt:

..."The Challenge," the men-vs.-women format that gave the top female runners a lead of nearly 20 minutes over the men. The time differential was chosen by race officials in hopes of creating a close finish.

For those with poor reading comprehension - this means that "The Challenge" was a separate offer from the race organizers, presumably an attempt to increase the entertainment value of the race. I did not see the words "equality" or "level playing field" in any communication from the event planners. Those words were introduced by users in this forum, presumably to support their personal agendas.

EDIT #2: Honestly, all I see here is entertainment value, not a political comment on gender equality or lack thereof. "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." ~Freud

I remember in the 70's there was a tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. It got a lot of people talking too.

That is wrong

I am a feminist and acknowledge that women are not really comparable to men athletically. I am guessing the ones in charge of the race were ultra liberal and that was their way of making it *fair*

I dont know what to say about the difference in prizes though...absolutely flabbergasted.

Sorry, I dont know enough about marathons to answer your question. It doesnt seem quite right to me though. I guess they are giving women a handicap? Or maybe its got something to do with points or their qualifying times?

I don't get that at all, I mean whats the point in competing if you know your not going to win.

I wish I could answer that. And I wish it made sense. But it doesn't. And things like this actually set the feminist movement BACK, not forward!

There is a handicap, so to speak, for women based on lots of years of statistics, that basically declares that a man's recorded time is equal to a woman's slightly longer recorded time.

Her recorded time was probably better than the man's time in terms of the women's equivalent, so she probably got the bonus for being the overall winner of men and women combined. It's substantially more for the same reason, because she's the winner of the race.