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Right now I'm having an argument about NBA vs. WNBA players with someone and I'm trying to figure out where the disconnect is happening. My friend started the argument by saying, essentially, that the WNBA is compensated unfairly because as women the WNBA players don't have the same physiological potential as male players in the NBA. He says that they don't have the ability to be as fast, jump as high, react as quick, etc, because of their sex, and so the discrepancy in compensation is a sex issue. I replied that almost no one is as fast, can just as high, can react as quick, or be as tall as NBA players. More people watch the WNBA than some amateur male basketball leagues, and these men are just as male as NBA players, but they get fewer views than the WNBA despite being male. He replied that this doesn't matter because they're not professional basketball players, while WNBA and NBA players are both pros.

So my hang up is that I think my response is valid. He's saying it's a sex issue but I'm providing a sex related counterexample, but then he restricts it to professionals. I'm not sure which of us is making an error, because it seems his reasoning is related to sex and I've provided a sex-related counterexample, but he's saying that this counterexample isn't a counterexample because it's not within the set of professionals. So which one of us is making an error and how, or where is our miscommunication?

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  • Surely there are women's amateur leagues that get similarly low viewership as the men's amateur leagues.
    – Ryan_L
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 19:28
  • @Ryan_L Definitely. I'm not exactly sure what you're implying though, because I don't think that that counters my argument (because those women are still not as good as NBA players) and they're not professionals so it doesn't seem to get at my friend's concern either.
    – Nick Calabrese
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 20:18
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    I think maybe you're both making errors. He's needlessly limiting it to professionals; amateurs are only not professionals because nobody watches them. But then the best women in the world regularly lose to boy's high-school teams, yet still get far superior viewership, so it seems to be more than amateur-vs-pro. cbssports.com/soccer/news/…
    – Ryan_L
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 20:39
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    That WNBA players do not have the same physiological potential is an alternative to sexism justification of the lower compensation. It is odd to present it as an argument that lower compensation is sexist in the first place. But, be it as it may, your objection reinforces the premise, amateur males are also compensated lower. So it is equally odd to present it as objection. Nonetheless, your friend then objects to the objection that supports his premise. This is a mess. What you should have objected to is "fairness" of equal compensation regardless of performance, for "professionals" or not
    – Conifold
    Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 23:16
  • @Conifold "But, be it as it may, your objection reinforces the premise, amateur males are also compensated lower," I reinforce the premise in that I agree that women don't have the same physiological potential as NBA players, but my point is that neither do men (in general) and so I'm saying his premise is strange because the issue he's presenting as sexist isn't unique to one sex (women) and so it can't be sexist.
    – Nick Calabrese
    Commented Apr 9, 2021 at 22:08

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