Originally Posted by Psimet2001

We have officially/unofficially adopted an equal price purse policy and have for years. Like above - you can pay 20 deep in the mens and 3 deep in the women's if you want but the pay is equal for the same spots.

People who say things like, "The race has to pay for itself - if there are only x people racing then they shouldn't"- full stop. That's not how races work. anyone who thinks it is should be removed from race promotion immediately and their races boycotted.

Women make up over 50% of the population. They are currently around 15% of licensed racers. That only happens if they have been actively discouraged from racing. This is a very old sexist industry. It's beyond time for it to change.

Bottom line is that no one is watching anyway. Racing is simply a way for people to indulge their own egos. As such if anyone actually spends 5 seconds thinking it shouldn't be made unilaterally equal across genders immediately then they are only thinking so out of sexist spite.

I brought this up on a USA Cycling Masters post somewhere - It's not even remotely representative of our population. The last thing we need is more of them or to listen to their thoughts about what should be done to fix it. I include myself in that.