The fight for equality between men and women has increased drastically over the past few years, but the perseverance of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team has paid off and made history.
In early 2019, the members of the women’s soccer team decided to file a gender discrimination lawsuit against U.S. soccer. According to The Washington Post, they sued for “paying lower salaries to women and subjecting them to more dangerous playing conditions than their male counterparts.”
In May, 2020, a U.S. District Court judge in California, R. Gary Klausner decided to reject the notion regarding the equal-pay section of the lawsuit. He claimed that while the men's soccer team made more money based on the amount of games they played and won, members of the women's team had previously agreed to a lower pay salary. The Washington Post describes Klausner’s decision, saying, “that the members of the team had been paid less because the women opted for a pay structure that includes more security in the form of negotiated annual salaries, maternity and child-care benefits, and severance pay when they are no longer on the team.” He goes on to explain that because of the women agreeing to the salary arrangement beforehand, they could not claim that they had been treated as inferior to the men's team.
A year later, after years of fighting for equality, they managed to make history for not only women's soccer, but for women involved in sports all over the country. According to CNBC, U.S. Soccer and the Women’s National Team have come to an agreement: U.S. Soccer will pay $22 million dollars to the team in compensation and an additional two million regarding their, “post-career goals and charitable efforts related to women's and girls' soccer.”
CNBC quotes Alex Morgan, a member of the team, speaking about the topic during her interview with Today, “U.S. Soccer has agreed to equalize the prize money moving forward, obviously we call on FIFA to truly equalize that for men's and women's tournaments," she said. "That's really what we set out to do. Equalize on all fronts." Another teammate, Megan Rapinoe commented, “This is going to be one of those incredible moments that we look back on and say the game changed forever, U.S. Soccer changed forever, and the landscape of soccer in this country and in the world changed forever because of this,”
Morgan, Rapinoe, and all members of the team hope to continue to make a difference in the game of soccer for female generations to come.
True equality is when women are held to the same standards, treated the same as men and are required to join the draft in war.