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It’s National Girls and Women in Sports Day: We want equal pay

Wmc features girls soccer Quiltsalad 020420
National Girls and Women in Sports Day draws attention to both the accomplishments of female athletes and the continuing struggle for opportunities and equality. (Quiltsalad, lic. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

“We wanted to create a league in which it is clearly a viable option to play in the WNBA,” Chiney Ogwumike, vice president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, told the New York Times in a story on the league’s recently brokered collective bargaining agreement (CBA), which is being hailed as nothing short of a revolutionary advancement for women on the court. “We’re providing a new starting line for those who come after us.”

Hers is a sentiment shared by another athlete-activist — U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) captain Megan Rapinoe, who, along with her team, last year balanced a soccer World Cup victory with an ongoing legal fight for equal pay. “Don’t let anyone define your dream,” Rapinoe urged girls in the audience at the Women’s Sports Foundation’s (WSF) 40th Annual Salute to Women in Sports last October. “Dream way bigger than anything you’re seeing right now. Hopefully, we’re setting the groundwork for the next generation to be massive superstars.”

WSF’s mission has long been to lay that groundwork — and this week, they’ll mark one more year of progress in leveling the field during the February 5 observation of National Girls and Women in Sports Day, first celebrated in 1987. The day, intended to “acknowledge the accomplishments of female athletes, the positive influence of sports participation, and the continuing struggle for equality for women in sports,” has taken on a new urgency in a sports landscape in which female players are rising up more than ever to demand equality — but discrimination persists.

“We have seen tremendous strides in girls’ and women’s sports in the 34 years since NGWSD began, and the potential to do more and have an even greater impact is palpable,” WSF CEO Deborah Antoine said in a statement. “What better time than the start of a new decade to keep equity in sport front and center? Sports provide lifelong benefits — health, mastery, leadership, confidence — all tremendously vital skills and attributes.”

This year, advocates from WSF will ring in NGWSD in Washington, D.C., meeting with congressional lawmakers to urge action on inequities for female athletes — chief among them the wage gaps that persist between male and female athletes, which became front-page fodder last year after Rapinoe and her teammates filed a pay discrimination lawsuit, later granted class-action status, against the United States Soccer Federation (USSF), the body that governs the men’s and women’s national teams. USSF pays the women’s team, which has now won four World Cups and four Olympic gold medals, only 38 percent of what is paid to their male counterparts, who have never won a World Cup. The lawsuit dominated headlines, and after the team claimed that fourth World Cup, crowds at USWNT games began shouting “equal pay” from the stands.

“The bottom line is simple,” USWNT former co-captain Becky Sauerbrunn told Ms. magazine last year, just days after the suit was announced on International Women’s Day. “It is wrong for us to be paid and valued less for our work because of our gender. Every member of this team works incredibly hard to achieve the success that we have had for the USSF. We are standing up now so that our efforts, and those of future USWNT players, will be fairly recognized.”

That spirit also guided the development of the new eight-year CBA for WNBA players, which the league has declared “provides the foundation to chart a new course for women’s professional basketball.” The agreement will take effect in the 2020 season and runs through 2027 after expected ratification from the league’s Board of Governors. “There are significant gains all across the board in this new agreement,” said WNBPA Executive Director Terri Jackson in a statement, “and everything is in place for our players and the league to thrive.”

Female players, who now receive only 20 to 30 percent of league revenue, could be splitting it 50/50 like male players do in the NBA by 2021, and their salaries will now be capped at $215,000 instead of $117,500. They’ll also be able to seize some of the $1.6 million annual league marketing agreements created in the CBA, and a new Commissioner’s Cup will give them a chance at $750,000 in prize money. Players will also be given more opportunities to coach in the NBA or WNBA and earn the full market rate for the work, and they’ll be able to qualify sooner for unrestricted free agency — opening up even more pathways to additional income.

Players will also now have a higher quality of life and more support in achieving a work-life balance. They’ll be provided with a full-salary maternity leave, stipends for child care, and on-site care within arenas. If they have families, the league will guarantee them two-bedroom apartments. When they travel, they’ll no longer be squeezing into economy seats with the least legroom.

According to a recent WSF study, Chasing Equity, 63 percent of female leaders in women’s sports have experienced sex discrimination in the workplace, and 60 percent reported being paid less for doing the same job as a man — but 31 percent of female coaches fear facing retaliation for speaking up about Title IX and gender equity.

“Men run the world, men have the power, men make the decisions — it’s always the man that is the stronger one,” Notre Dame women’s basketball coach Muffet McGraw lamented to the press during last year’s NCAA tournament. “When these girls are coming out, who are they looking up to to tell them that’s not the way it has to be? Where better to do that than in sports?”

The WNBA’s new CBA, and the USWNT’s fearless embrace of an activist pose, could be watershed moments for the girls dreaming of becoming women in sports — and help level their playing field.

“The WNBA CBA developments are exciting and encouraging, and help push the needle for equity in sports,” Sarah Axelson, senior director of advocacy for the Women’s Sports Foundation, told WMC. “This CBA can serve as an inspiration and catalyst for advancing opportunities for other professional athletes and women’s professional leagues. Whether it’s basketball, soccer, hockey, or any other sport, the time has come for true gender equity across all sports.”



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More articles by Tag: Equality, Equal Pay, Activism and advocacy, Women's leadership
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