
Serena Williams returns in her semifinal match of the French Open against Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland on June 4. (AP/Francois Mori)
When the U.S. Open begins Monday, Serena Williams will be playing for the first Grand Slam in a single calendar year for a female tennis player since 1988. Her dominance on the court is extraordinary by pretty much any standard. Yet she's not the highest-paid female tennis player.
That has always been her rival Maria Sharapova, who took in $29.7 million over the past year. Williams took in $24.6 million over the same period, or about 83 percent of Sharapova's earnings, according to Forbes.
[Read more: Serena Williams isn't the world’s highest-paid female athlete]
Williams actually made more in prize money, but received just $13 million in endorsements from advertisers, compared to Sharapova's $23 million.
Williams addressed the difference in an interview in this weekend's issue of The New York Times Magazine. "If they want to market someone who is white and blond, that’s their choice. I have a lot of partners who are very happy to work with me," she said. "I'm happy for her, because she worked hard, too."
It could be that advertisers' preference for Sharapova has nothing to do with race. Perhaps Sharapova is particularly adept at managing her brand, or maybe Williams spends more time honing her serve and less time shooting commercials.
But Williams doesn't seem to see it that way. And in general, black women do make less than white women, according to a recent report from the American Association of University Women.
The average black woman earned $33,780 in 2013, which was 82 percent of the average white woman's annual earnings of $41,010. Similarly, Williams's earnings last year were 83 percent of Sharapova's.
The disparity is even greater among men. Black male workers earned $37,290 on average in 2013, more than black women but just 71 percent of white men's average earnings of $52,452.
These figures for workers across the economy do not take into account how much time they spent working or what kind of work they were doing. It's possible that more black women are stuck in part-time jobs that don't pay as well as the full-time jobs that white women do. In other words, it might not be decisions by individual businesses that disadvantage black women, but society in general, which doesn't give them a chance to compete.
Yet that reasoning doesn't apply to Williams and Sharapova. They have the same job -- and in fact, Williams is better at it.
"There is enough at the table for everyone," Williams told The Times. She recognizes how fortunate she is. For black women working in jobs that don't pay as well, of course, there isn't always enough to go around. And if advertisers' preferences are any indication of how employers behave in the rest of the private sector, it wouldn't be surprising if some component of the racial disparity in pay among women is simply due to the desire for a white face in the front of the house.
