Why women should be paid less than men........

....at Wimbledon, I must add.

Anyway, there's currently outrage at Wimbledon since the men's champion will be paid £30,000 more than the female winner. Tessa Jowell has apparently written to Wimbledon to complain and to 'urge' the LTA to pay the same for both winners.

Normally I'd agree - men have no right to being paid more than women. However, it's important to consider the following:

• There are 128 people in both the men and women draws
  
• Which means that the winner has to play 7 games to win (excluding a successful qualifier winning)
  
• On average, a set lasts 38 minutes
  
• The men play best of 5 sets, whereas the women play best of 3

On this basis, the following are true:

Total Sets Played

_	Min	Ave	Max
Men	21	28	35
Women	14	17.5	21

Total Minutes Played

_	Min	Ave	Max
Men	798	1064	1330
Women	532	665	798

Total Hours Played

_	Min	Ave	Max
Men	13.3	17.73	22.17
Women	8.87	11.08	13.3

And therefore:

Earnings per hour ('Hourly Wage'?)

_	Min	Ave	Max
Men	£49,248	£36,943	£29,544
Women	£70,462	£56,407	£46,992

So on average, the women are earning £20,000 more per hour than the men......

The question is, if a man working in an office does twice as many hours as a women does in the same week, will we start demanding that she is paid the same annual salary? Or will we in fact start demanding that Wimbledon only pay the female winner £409,328, to even up the hourly 'wage'?

On a different note, I think I need a pay rise!