Women AFL Essays - Equal Pay For Equal Work, Academic Disciplines

Women AFL Essays - Equal Pay For Equal Work, Academic Disciplines The AFL was founded in 1896, more than a century ago. The sport has gained millions of fans across the country; of all ages and genders. For more than a century, the league had only consisted of male players, but just recently (2017), the AFL had finally approved eight female teams to play their own season. Many AFL fans were delighted as women finally had the chance to be professional players in one of the most popular sports of Australia. But it was rather disappointing to most of these fans when they learned that these female teams would earn significantly less than male teams. Erin Riley, the writer of the opinion piece: There is no defence for failing to pay players in the AFL women's league a living', published by The Sydney Morning Herald on the 31st August 2016, brings up the several defences' that have been made about not giving the women's league equal pay and rebuts these excuses with their own arguments. Some of the points Riley raises about this issue include the history of women being excluded from the market, the fact that their current pay is not enough for a living, and how equal work should attain equal pay. The author uses techniques such as rhetorical questions, appeals to justice, statistics and imagery with an overall indignant tone. In contrast, a comment written by Adam contradicts Riley's arguments by declaring that the author's reasoning wouldn't have an impact as it had already been brought up before by many other sports. Adam mentions that even men have to work other jobs to earn their living as well and simply complaining about the pay gap won't change things unless proper action is taken. Adam uses a matter-of-fact tone to rebut Riley's arguments and utilises emotive language, repetition and logic to prove their point. Over the past century, men's sport has had to opportunity to grow to what it is today, with funding from the government. Riley mentions that women did not have the ability to receive fundings for sport because they were "actively excluded" from participating in them. Riley uses the statistic of "over more than 100 years," to remind readers of the handicap that men received; that women didn't. The writer also uses a rhetorical question: "Why shouldn't the women's league get the same opportunity?" followed by the concept of a "level playing field" to further point out the unfairness demonstrated towards women over time. This also appeals to the readers' sense of justice, that women should start being treated fairly now instead of following the decisions made in the past. Riley links their argument back to the issue by stating that, "The market for the women's competition fundamentally cannot develop the way the men's competition has." This connects to the point that professional female players need this extra pay to compensate for the fact they didn't have enough time to build up their reputation. Conversely, Adam states, "simply complaining that the men have it better is not going to get it done." Though this rebuts Riley's argument as a whole, it can also say that complaining about the past won't fix anything for the present. They add that this [complaining] "approach has proven to be massively unsuccessful for every professional women's league in the world." It is intended here to remind the opposition that their argument had already been gone through before, and it did not change anything. But following this, the writer mentions the successful campaigning of the WTA (Women's Tennis Association) "over a long period of time". This makes the opposition hopeful, but also reminds them that it takes time and effort if the AFL women's league wants to attain equal pay. This collocation of successful' and unsuccessful' gives the perception that the writer isn't comple tely against women receiving equal pay, therefore leading to have the readers agree with the writer because of its logic and relatively positive connotations. The entire issue of paying women the same amount of pay is not only because of equity, but mainly to allow them to pursue their passion full-time and earn a living at that as well. Riley argues that although it's a women's sport and the work load