Toward Equality

Its easy to bitch about what's wrong with the world. Lord knows I've done enough of it. One of the things I've been working on has been shifting my attention to those ways that this world is already becoming a better place. Today's example: Wimbledon. The world's oldest and most prestigeous tennis tournament has announced that it is finally awarding equal prize money to women. Certainly Wimbledon isn't the first tournament to eliminate the pay gap -- that honor belongs to the U.S. Open, in 1998 -- nor was the gap particularly significant in recent years. "Last year’s women’s singles champion, Amelie Mauresmo, earned $1.117 million, 95 percent of the $1.17 million men’s champion Roger Federer," reports the New York Times. Still, Wimbledon overcame myriad rationalizations why it should continue the practice and instead put them all aside and is finally treating men and women equally. You can argue about their motivations or that they should have done it years ago but you can't deny that today we're a step closer to equality, and that's good for all of us.