Tommy Martin: It might be up to Ireland's men to ensure women get equal slice of the pie
Megan Connolly of Republic of Ireland poses for a selfie following the UEFA Women's 2021 European Championships qualifier match against Ukraine. Picture: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile
As an reader and therefore a person of culture and discernment, I’m sure you like to keep up with Parisian literary concerns.
You’ll be aware, then, that the latest sensation in French publishing is a book entitled . Which, being French, sounds lovely, but actually means — and there’s no real way of sugar-coating this — I Hate Men.
The author of I Hate Men, Pauline Harmange, argues that misandry, or man-hating, should be a default position for women, given that men are responsible for almost all convictions for rape and domestic violence and most of the nasty things in the world in general.
The book was destined for undergraduate reading-list obscurity until an official from France’s gender equality ministry attempted to have it banned on the grounds of incitement to hatred. After which, naturally, it soared up the bestseller charts.
Before you ask, Harmange is herself married, to a man called Mathieu. She says that women should make exceptions to their misandry for certain men as they see fit, which, presumably, is good news for Mathieu.
Understandably the book has provoked debate, or at least the talk radio we-want-to-hear-YOUR-views-on-this type of debate.
For most men there’s a natural sense of indignation at being boxed into the ranks of the detestables, along with rapists, serial killers, and Tory ministers.
I mean, we all hate those men. But why hate the rest of us? Most of us don’t really feel like agents of the patriarchy. We try to do the right thing, we believe in gender equality. We might even class ourselves as feminists.
And anyway, life is no picnic for us either. We too must struggle and toil in the face of society’s iniquities. Those guys with the old school ties? The ones in government, banks, and big business? Yeah, those guys over there, in the yacht. Hate those guys!
But the trouble with male privilege is that it often doesn’t feel like privilege. Privilege isn’t riding around in a golden chariot, drinking champagne from a diamond-encrusted goblet. Privilege feels more like sitting on a comfy couch with a ready supply of beer and snacks. The man on the couch doesn’t feel like he’s especially privileged, but God help you if try to get him to leave it.
I like to think of the struggle for equality in women’s sport in this way. Most men aren’t actually the kind that post on Twitter about how women’s sport is rubbish and covering it is a waste of time (I hate those guys too).
Most of us are hugely supportive of women’s sport and delighted at the strides made in recent years. Many of us are armed with daughters, that army of little human torches shining a light into the hitherto murky reaches of our unchecked privilege.
They make us think about things we never thought about before. Like the fact that forcing girls to wear skirts in their school uniform is a contributory factor in them not taking part in athletic activities. Of course, that makes sense, we just never thought about it because, you know, the couch.
The Irish women’s soccer team know all about this sort of thing. Remember they had to fight a pitched battle with their own association a couple of years back to get fairer treatment? They weren’t looking to overthrow the patriarchy, remember, they were looking for tracksuits.
Thankfully the issue was resolved and the team have continued their progress since, tracksuits and all. Now they sit on top of their Euro 2021 qualifying group, but face a murderously difficult run of matches, starting with Saturday’s game with Germany in Essen.
So, they have probably been too busy to think much about the news that Brazil and England had become the latest nations to pay their men and women’s teams equally for international appearance fees. They join a very short list which includes Australia, New Zealand, and Norway, while the USA are currently suing their own association over the matter.
Why couldn’t Ireland follow suit? Currently, the men get around €2,000 for a competitive game and about €1,000 for a friendly. The women’s team get €250 per game. Ah, says the man from the couch, sure it’s the men’s team that brings in all the money, that’s why they get paid more.
Maybe, a long time ago, appearance fees did represent some sort of commercial arrangement, a slice of the pie for the guys on the field doing the work.
But now the money the men’s team receive is chicken feed compared to most of their club salaries. The commercial side of football is already looking after the men perfectly well.
As the FAI is not a profit-seeking venture (ahem), the international match fee can therefore be regarded as a highly symbolic statement on how it views its two main teams. The association, currently on a life-support tube connected directly to the state coffers, is duty-bound by basic principles of equality to pay both teams the same.
The problem is that shifting money around the FAI at the moment is like the proverbial too-short blanket. Equalising the match fees would cost around €40,000 per game, or roughly half of a John Delaney birthday party. Money which the association, for obvious reasons, doesn’t have.
So, this is where the men’s team come in. I don’t hate those guys. I love those guys. We all love those guys. Even though they didn’t speak up for the women during their protest and they really should have, we STILL love them.
Wouldn’t it be great if they got up from the comfy couch of privilege (I know lads, it’s hard) and offered to pool their appearance fees with the women’s team and have them divided equally?
The money would be important for many of the women’s squad, especially those who are part-time. But mostly it’s about equality, about what it says about Ireland, about what you’d want for your daughter.
It’s about doing the right thing. We all want to be one of those guys, right?
