Listen Up! It’s time to Walk the Walk

Hugh Mackenzie
Huntsville Doppler

In the world of Sports, two things happened yesterday that are very significant and worth noting. The first of course is that Bianca Andreescu a 19 year old Canadian, won the U.S Open Tennis Championship. She is the youngest person to win this prestigious award and she is also the first Canadian to walk away with it. And she took it in stride. Not only did she defeat one of the world’s most renowned tennis players, she acknowledged that the sell-out crowd would rather have seen Serena Williams win, and in a typically Canadian way, she apologized for it! What a day it was for Canada. I know people who normally wouldn’t give a damn about tennis who were stuck to their televisions, urging Bianca on.

The second significant event is not that Bianca Andreescu is coming home with $US 3.8 million in her jeans, but much more importantly, she is coming home with exactly the same amount of prize money the winner of the Men’s U.S. Open Tennis Championship will earn. This is somewhat of an anomaly, because far too often in professional sports, and sadly not unlike what happens in the corporate world, qualified women are often paid much less than their male counterparts.

Take the world of Golf for instance. Brooke Henderson is another Canadian hero. Turning just 22 in a couple of days, she has won golf tournaments around the world, including the Women’s PGA Championship in 2016. She has been named the best female athlete of the year by the Canadian Press in 2015, 2016 and 2018. She may have a run for her money with Bianca Andreescu in 2019, but nevertheless, she is one of our country’s top athlete’s – male or female. And yet, her tournament winnings are a fraction of what they would be for a male counterpart with a similar record.

There will be no tag days for Brooke Henderson. Her net worth is recorded at $4 million. But there are male professional golfers who will never come close to matching her achievements and have a higher net worth. That is simply not right. The same can be said for a number of professional sports, including Rugby, where Canada has a world-class professional team who are paid a pittance of their male counterparts.

Of course the inequity in compensation for women, or for roles that are primarily related to women, is not restricted to the field of sports, and I was reminded about this last week when I read comments on Doppler related to a posting of the video, “Our Town”, by my friend, Grant Nickalls. It was a back to school piece about how important teachers are to the wellbeing and education of our young people. I agreed with it all, but some of the comments that followed reminded me of the dirty little secret that exists in the world of public education that many of us ignore.

Most teachers, whether they are male or female, receive equal compensation, depending on their academic qualifications and their responsibilities. Further, in the scheme of things, especially when compared to their American counterparts, they are paid fairly well. But then there is another group of educational professionals, known as Teacher’s Aides or Teacher’s Assistants. Here, we have a completely different kettle of fish.

Teacher’s Aides are predominately female and most, if not all have a college degree at the minimum. They work the same hours as the teachers and most often deal with the more difficult students who have challenges that are not consistent with the rest of the class. I believe most teachers that have T.A.s, would tell you they do not know how they would get along without them. In many ways, Teachers Assistants are unsung heroes. As Grant has said, they are often kicked and shoved and spit upon. They deal with the vulnerable and the challenged. They, like teachers, make a real difference in the lives of young people.

The dirty little secret is that these dedicated educators get little recognition outside of their own limited circle, and even less compensation. The amount of money they get paid is frankly embarrassing and, unlike their teacher counterparts, they are laid off during the summer and get nothing. This to me is shameful.

This is but one example (although one that really bugs me) about how women are often treated unfairly in the workplace. My own experience, when I was in business, is that in many instances qualified women worked harder and provided more value than some men. It seems a no-brainer to me that employers would not see it in their best interest to ensure equality for the men and women they hire.

Justin Trudeau proudly labels himself as a feminist but a close study of his history while in office would challenge that. He made much of the fact that his first Cabinet was gender neutral but with some showcase exceptions – the majority of senior responsibilities in Cabinet went to men. While political appointments to Boards, Commissions, and Agencies have also been relatively evenly divided between men and women, higher compensation and more senior appointments are heavily weighted toward men. Further, when the Prime Minister does appoint women to senior positions he expects them to act like the good old boys as evidenced by Dr. Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould.

The fact that we still, in 2019, have a serious problem with equality between men and women in the workplace goes, in my view, directly to leadership. It is one thing, and in my view a dangerous and regressive thing, to just talk the talk. It is quite another to actually walk the walk.

When it comes to this issue, let us not be fooled by empty words and false initiatives. The women of this country deserve much better than that.

Don’t miss out on Doppler!

Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox three times per week!