Women bowlers decry prize gender gap

Women bowlers decry prize gender gap

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

When women's bowler Wendy Chai of Malaysia won the Asian Bowling Federation (ABF) Tournament of Champions here last week, she had every reason to be proud about taking the season-ending championships.

As she picked up her winner's check for US$10,000, she also may have paused to think about what might have been.

For if she had triumphed in the men's event, Chai would have taken home double the amount.

The prize-money gender gap grates on Indonesian women's bowler Putty Armein and Malaysia's Shalin Zulkifli.

"Men's and women's bowlers play in the same lanes, use the same ball and pins. It is a type of discrimination when the women's winner only receives half the winner's prize of that of the men," said the Indonesian number one.

She said the response of the ABF was dissatisfying; they told her the prize money distribution was fair because there were more men players than women.

And, she added, an official told her that male bowlers "fight harder" than their female counterparts.

With such unreceptive responses, Putty was pessimistic the prize structure would change soon, unless there was an increase in the number of women bowlers.

Her hope is that the ABF will hold more "battle of the sexes" tournaments, in which the purse is equal.

"If we had such a tournament more often, it would be good," she said.

Shalin, who has defeated men's bowlers in mixed competition, concurred with Putty, but said change would take time.

"It is only to be expected if women's bowlers demand equal prize winnings with men's bowlers."

The sports arena is no different from the workplace, where women continue to lag behind men in the pay stakes. No woman ranked in the 2004 Forbes list of the 50 highest paid athletes, headed by F1 champion Michael Schumacher and golf's Tiger Woods, who both made US$80 million.

The 50th highest paid athlete, basketball player Andre Miller, made $15 million, compared to the top woman, Serena Williams, with earnings of 10 million.

Part of the problem may be that women's sports lack the high- paying team divisions of basketball, baseball and soccer, but there is also the continuing feeling that a woman's effort somehow does not measure up in dollars and cents.

Even in tennis, where player Billie Jean King made strides in gaining equal pay in the early 1970s and women make more money than in any other sport, two of the Grand Slams -- Wimbledon and the French Open -- continue to provide less prize money to women.

The justification is that men play the best of five sets instead of three for the women.

For bowling, a sport in which women can compete -- and win -- at the highest levels against male opponents, the pay difference is hard to justify.

In 2001, the touring players of the Professional Women's Bowling Association (PWBA) voted to boycott the U.S. Open due to inequality in prize money and the broadcast time allocation in the men's and women's events.

They accused the Bowling Proprietors Association of America (BPAA) of reneging on its verbal commitment for equality for the event. The men's purse was $350,000, compared to $187,500 for the women.

Meanwhile, top Indonesian men's bowler Ryan Lalisang said he would not mind prize money equality among the sexes.

"It might also be good if men's and women's bowlers could compete against each other to win a single prize," he said.

ABF's honorary life president, Vivien Fung of Hong Kong, said the federation recognized the issue of prize inequality, but the current prize structure would not be altered because there were more male competitors.

"I think that the present prize structure is acceptable until the number of women's bowlers reach the same number of men's bowlers."