Oral d'anglais STMG notion idée du progrès

Notion Idea of Progress

Introduction: I’m going to study the notion « idea of progress ». To begin with, I’d like to give a definition of the notion. Progress is an improvement or a steady evolution towards a better situation. It is thus the idea that the world can become a better place in terms of technology, civil rights or social issues for example. Progress is defined as any kind of improvement. However, progress may have limits. In relation to this notion, the subject of my presentation is going to be social issues: in other words, we are going to focus on fair pay in the world of sports. We may wonder to what extent can we say that pay equality in sports is a work in progress. To address this issue, we will first analyze pay inequality in sports, secondly the struggle to change this and finally the limits to this progress.

1. Pay inequality in sports

In many sports, female athletes are underpaid compared to male athletes. We will take the example of the WNBA and the NBA through the article published in July 2018 on the Forbes website. This article deals with pay inequality between WNBA and NBA players. The pay gap between male and female basketball players is extremely big. For example, the men’s minimum salary is 10 times higher than the women’s minimum salary. Moreover, women ballers earn less money than NBA superstars such as Lebron James. Women usually make twice as less money as men in US basketball. Some women even have to play overseas to make more money. Consequently, they work twice as much as men athletes and they don’t have time to rest. Moreover, although referees aren’t athletes, they earn more money than female athletes. According to the president of the WNBA, sexism explains this pay gap because people think women don’t play as well as men. However, WNBA players are for example more educated than NBA players because, contrary to the men, they need a college degree to be drafted.

1. The struggle to change this

Although female athletes suffer from the pay gap, they fight for change. A videoclip from a movie entitled Battle of The Sexes demonstrates it well. The famous tennis player Billie Jean King is negotiating the prize money for a future tournament. Indeed, she realized the male winner is going to receive 8 times as much money as the female winner. She’s demanding an explanation. The male organizers argue that men have to provide for their families. However, BJK explains she’s the breadwinner in her family. She’s determined to see the matter to the end. BJK fought during the 70s but the fight is still on today, because the problem is still not over. We also see the fight through the news report about a cheerleader called Erica Wilkens. She was ecstatic when she learned she became a Dallas Cowboys’ cheerleader. Unfortunately, she realized she was underpaid (she only made $8 an hour). Moreover, she couldn’t sign any endorsement or advertisement deals. She decided to file a lawsuit in order to be paid fair. She accused the team of not paying all her hours of work and not paying her overtime. Finally, the team has offered to pay the money they owed her, but Wilkens declined the offer. She wants other cheerleaders to join the lawsuit and make a change. So, these fights were able to have positive results as Venus Williams, who fought for the women tennis players to be paid fair in the Grand Slam tournaments (especially with Wimbledon). She received support from farmer Prime Minister Tony Blair and the British Parliament, and all tournaments stopped paying women unfairly.

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