Recently there’s been a lot of talk about equal pay. The US Women’s soccer brought that back an issue that deserves to be talked about. Equal pay for equal work regardless of gender or race or beliefs should be something that we discuss. Let’s forget for a second that what caused us to talk about this is a sport and totally throw out instances where equal pay is not available no matter the situation.
I work in SEO, for those that don’t know that’s Search Engine Optimization. Basically, it’s my job to make sure my client’s websites get found on google. Out of potentially millions of websites, my clients need to come first. Because Google is essentially a computer program there are rules. These rules help Google determine if your keto blog is better than someone else’s keto blog. Luckily, these rules can be figured out through trial and testing. Meaning these rules, for the most part, are known.
The hard part is that each of these websites are different. They have different words, different links, different readers in different areas. With that much diversity in websites, it becomes really hard to see who is best. When someone asks me if something is good for SEO, my answer is “all things being equal” maybe.
When it comes to equality in pay particularly in something as convoluted as sports, it’s difficult to determine a monetary value exchange. After all, everyone is out to make a profit. Organizations, non-profits and yes even you – a profit in exchange for your time. I believe all things being equal there absolutely should be equal pay. However, no matter how abysmal the US Men’s team is, if they are bringing in more revenue they will get more. Many would say the women, not only deserve equal pay but better pay based on performance. Deservedness isn’t a business term, this is a moral term.
Just because a missionary deserves a bigger reward than a drug dealer, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. The missionary is solving an internal psychological and spiritual problem, whereas the drug deal is solving an immediate physical desire. Isn’t it interesting that the highest profits often come from things that are luxuries to satisfy instant, short term cravings?
The biggest problem with this equality conversation in regards to compensation is that it’s forcing us to compare ourselves with another person. In the context of sports performance, this is certainly acceptable. However, often people determine their own self worth by their net worth.
All Things Are Equal
The world of economics will never have equal pay. Socialism and communism have failed at trying to produce this. There is only one area where we are all equal. That’s our value. A Good Father doesn’t place more value on one child over another and neither does our Heavenly Father. He loves each of us the same and while the world will never pay equally, He will always love completely and equally.
The Bible says we’re ALL made in the image of God, it calls us each brother and sisters. Jesus sums up the commandments with love God and love our neighbor. Incredulously, when He said this, they ask, “who is our neighbor?” He probably wanted to reply, “It’s another human that isn’t you, dummy,” but he didn’t. Instead, He told the story of the Good Samaritan. Later, Peter still not totally bought into this way of thinking realizes that neighbor even includes the Roman oppressors (Acts 10). Yes, God’s grace extends to the most hated enemies. Imagine having to share God’s love with ISIS!
Bottomline: The point is that we are all equal in God’s eyes and need to be equal in each other’s eyes.
