Few teams have been as glorious on the soccer field as the United States Women’s National Team. They’ve won three World Cups, four Olympic gold medals, and set the standard in the most popular sport on the planet. But despite their achievements, the players say they have been discriminated against, paid less and treated worse, next to the U.S. men’s team. Soccer may be known as the beautiful game, but the team has embarked on a bruising and historic legal fight for equality and their opponent is the U.S. Soccer Federation, their own employer…
They hope a victory will help close the gap, not just in sport, but in any job where women do the same work as men for less pay.
(CBS 60 Minutes, November 20, 2016)
This pay dispute transcends sports. What’s more, it’s complicated, not least because it’s not the typical apples-to-apples case of women doing the same work as men, in the same workplace, for less pay.
Foremost, women Soccer players do not generate as much interest, let alone as much revenue, as their male counterparts. Which is why this is not just about discrimination – as the women players claim. It’s also about capitalism.
Indeed, nothing undermines their claims quite like women Tennis players getting equal pay because they generate as much interest and revenue as their male counterparts. What’s more, women Golf, Soccer, and Basketball players help make the case for unequal pay. For, like Hockey players, they do not get equal pay because they do not generate as much interest and revenue as the men in their sports, respectively.
No doubt deeply rooted cultural biases account for, explain, and perpetuate much of this discrepancy in pay:
Instead of commanding network coverage in primetime, like the men’s championship, the women’s was relegated to cable last night, which guaranteed only a fraction of the viewership. Yet the TV executives who are responsible for dissing women’s college Basketball in this fashion are the very ones who wonder why they can’t get better ratings for the fledgling women’s professional league – the WNBA.
Moreover, what does all of this say to female college athletes, as well as to young girls who we encourage to have the same interest in sports as young boys…? Frankly, it says that male chauvinism, sexism, and discrimination against women in sports not only still exist but are blithely tolerated.
Sorry girls….
(“NCAA Women’s Championship,” The iPINIONS Journal, April 8, 2009)
I clearly have a great deal of sympathy for the claims these women Soccer players are making. But I am constrained to interject that I have more sympathy for similar claims NCAA Division 1 Football players are making.
After all, NCAA Football players are generating as much interest and (almost as much) revenue as NFL Football players; yet they are getting NO pay. Which is why this is not amateurism – as the NCAA claims. It’s indentured servitude.
I’ve been decrying this manifest unfairness for years in such commentaries as “The Categorical Imperative to Pay College Athletes Just Got Stronger,” March 28, 2014, and “Salaries of College Coaches Reflect Enduring Master-Slave Relationships,” October 28, 2016.
All the same, I urge you to not only watch this Soccer match for equal pay as it plays out, but cheer for the women players against the federation – as if they were playing a final World Cup match against the Russians. Because they deserve all of the money they can get … even if it’s not equal to what their male counterparts are getting.
Related commentaries:
NCAA women’s…
Salaries Coaches…