It’s an issue that’s not going away any time soon, because it’s not easily resolved. In the wake of a wage-discrimination suit brought by several women’s soccer players against U.S. Soccer, tennis has been held up as an equal opportunity sport. But that was debunked in a recent New York Times article that explored not only the gap between male and female players’ pay but the disparity in the attitudes of the sexes on the subject.

Noting that the Grand Slam tournaments – Wimbledon and the Australian, French and US Opens – have equal prize money, Billie Jean King, who fought long for that equality, said, “To have equal prize money in the majors sends a message. It’s not about the money, it’s about the message.”

Trust me, it’s about the money. Because the money is the message. In the words of the newly popular Alexander Hamilton – thanks, “Hamilton” – “Power without revenue is a merely bauble.” Precisely. Money tells a worker what he or she is worth – in the marketplace. I didn’t always think that way. But time, and the most recent recession, have taught me otherwise.

Clearly, the inequality between the men and women rankles the female players.

“The facts were not put on the table. The fact is we don’t earn equal prize money,” Andrea Petkovic, a German player ranked 30th, told The Times. “It’s not true. We only earn it in the Grand Slams and a few other tournaments, but men earn more than we do. I think it was discussed in the wrong manner, and that was very sad to see.”

King is, however, right in one sense. It is about the message, and the message is that we don’t value women – or the feminine, in the Jungian sense of the word – in the way we value men and the masculine. There’s a long cultural history behind this – one that continues to influence the present. But we can close the disparity. Perhaps we could begin with the Slams alternating the men’s and women’s finals as the last event of the singles competitions instead of having the women’s singles finals always being the penultimate events.

The women can help their cause by developing the kind of rivalries the men, particularly the so-called Big Four, have. Oh, for the days of Evert-Navratilova.

Marquee matchups of the men and women in mixed doubles – Remember Nick Kyrgios and Eugenie Bouchard heating up the US Open last year? – could spark greater interest in the women’s game.

The men can help by being more supportive. World No. 1 Novak Djokovic has reconsidered his initial comments about the pay being based on the greater popularity of the men’s game. World No. 2 Andy Murray has said he favors equal pay. But the rank-and-file are either resistant or skeptical. Sergiy Stakhovsky – a member of the ATP Player Council, which governs men’s tennis, and the 111th –ranked player – wants a moratorium on tournaments that feature both men’s and women’s competition, because he thinks it dilutes the men’s superior product:

“This way, we have our own venue, they have their own venue. I think that women deserve to be paid more. I’m not saying they deserve to be paid less. But this has nothing to do with paying us.

“We’ve been through a lot of talks with the Grand Slams in the last three years, and the increases (in pay) have been significant and we’re very grateful,” Stakhovsky told The Times. “But every time we came to the table, and every time there was a number we asked for, we got half of it. And we know why.”

So he’s advocating separate and equal – and we all know how that worked out in American race relations.

The men should understand that more for the women doesn’t have to mean less for them.

“I just wish that we would be a leader,” Petkovic told The Times, “that it wouldn’t matter about who is more popular, who is this or that. We, as a sport, could stand for something more than equal prize money — we’d stand for community and sportsmanship.”