Equality or Capitalism

OR

Had COVID-19 not wreaked havoc, May 5 2020 was supposed to mark the beginning of the class action lawsuit, brought against the U.S. Soccer Federation by members of the Women’s National football team. The lawsuit was concerning a problem faced by women everywhere, equal pay as their male compatriots. The 21st century has made people realize there is no room for sexism in any workplace. But is this case really about sexism or does it have a different aspect? Frankly, there are two parts to this.

The US Women’s football team (USWNT) is arguably, the best women’s team in the world. They have won the Women’s World Cup 4 times and the Olympic gold medal 4 times. On the other hand, the men’s team finished 3rd in the World Cup, way back in 1930. On paper, the USWNT deserves equal pay as the men’s Alone Garvit Saini | Comps | B.tech 2 For as long as the Internet is around, 20th September, 2019 will be remembered as the day of the Area 51 raid. After a ton of controversy, it did end up happening. However, for an event hyped up with millions of RSVPs, memes, and FBI investigations, it turned out to be pretty anti-climactic. The raid-turned-EDMfestival-turned-desert-RV-gathering concluded without any alien sightings or anyone trying to break into the military facility (thankfully). Alas, we’ll never know if Naruto runners are impervious to bullets, or whether the US government houses top-secret alien tech in Area 51 and runs around obliviating anyone who happens to see any. But of course, we can always speculate. Alien conspiracy theories have been around for centuries. Today, it’s widely believed by most of the world that aliens more or less exist; that somewhere out there in the vast expanse of the cosmos, there is intelligent life. Probability supports this theory. There are billions of planets in our galaxy alone that lie in the “Goldilocks zone” (neither too

team, even though comparing men’s and women’s football isn’t straightforward. A 2017 collective agreement increased both fixed pay and bonuses for the USWNT. The figures aren’t available to the general public, but the team was supposedly happy with the agreement. The problem was with the collective bonuses, which is not only controlled by the U.S. Soccer, but also FIFA.

This brings us to the larger pictureWomen’s football under FIFA. The total prize money on offer during the 2019 Women’s World cup was $30 million. Meanwhile, the total prize money during the 2018 Men’s World Cup was around $400 million, with eventual winners France taking home $38 million. Seems unfair, doesn’t it? But look at it from an economic perspective. Sponsors will pour money in the tournament which has more eyes on it. Higher sponsorship leads to greater revenue, which in turn leads to higher compensation. The hot nor too cold to sustain life) and there are trillions of galaxies like ours. It is next to impossible that throughout their billions of years of existence, none of these planets developed life since ours (a relatively new planet) already has intelligent life capable of space exploration. Concluding that somewhere at some time, intelligent life must have existed in our galaxy, it’s not a long shot to assume that they figured out interstellar travel. In such a short span of existence, we humans have seen exponential trends in technological advancement. An intelligent, dominant species can quickly exhaust their natural resources and start colonizing the rest of the galaxy. Witnessing the lack of such a galactic empire (that hopefully exists somewhere in a galaxy far far away), combined with the further lack of evidence of any extraterrestrial life ever visiting Earth, brings us to the question — where are the aliens? Why haven’t we heard from them? Tharun Balaji | Electrical | B.Tech 4

overall viewership for the Women’s World Cup was just over a billion viewers. In comparison, the Men’s World Cup final between France and Croatia had over a billion viewers. Ponder over this question- is the issue really about sexism or market forces?

Only now, major football clubs are starting to set up a women’s team. Manchester United, considered amongst one of Europe’s elite, started a women’s team in 2018. Change is slow and it takes time. The USWNT is an exceptional case, simply because they are world beaters. They are compared to the Men’s team, who are a bunch of nobodies and couldn’t even qualify for the last World Cup. Still, the revenue generated by both teams is similar. Expecting FIFA to follow an exception seems unfair. Society, as a whole, needs to accept women’s football. Until that happens, the argument for equal pay will always

face a strong opposition. This is the basic idea behind the Fermi paradox. Considering the overwhelming probability that intelligent alien life may exist, there must have been a civilization that had the means to, and therefore visited Earth. But no matter what Ancient Aliens says, there is no conclusive evidence of any extraterrestrial lifeforms ever visiting Earth. There are a few possible explanations. First comes to mind the scary thought that we are alone; that against the odds, there is no life anywhere in the universe except Earth. Another reason may be related to a belief amongst theorists that interstellar travel is impossible. The habitable planets are so far away from each other that contact is not achievable. So, assuming we’re not living in the Matrix, it’s anybody’s call on whether or not aliens exist. Maybe our technology is too primitive to understand their communication, or maybe the human mind is too primitive to perceive their existence. Or maybe it is true: we are all alone.