Gender inequality has been an ongoing problem worldwide . Women began fighting for equal rights during the women’s suffrage era. During this time women were fighting for rights to vote and to be a part of the electoral office. Finally, in 1919 Congress passed the 19th Amendment which stated, American women have the right to vote. Later in the 19th century there were feminism wave movements due to the inequality between the two genders. According to Burkett, “Feminist movements were also known as the women's liberation movement. The movements refer to a series of political campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment, and sexual violence, all of which fall under the label of feminism and the feminist movement” (1).Today society still struggles with gender inequality which is seen in the workplace also in the sports field. According to dictionary.com inequality means, “The quality of being unequal or uneven.” There are many different inequalities that women face in the both places that need to be addressed and challenged. The pay gap, discrimination at the workplace, lack of rights, domestic violence, partial opportunities at their careers, and sexual harassments are all the results of gender inequality.

 The biggest inequality that women face in the workplace is unfair treatment and sexual harassment. As mentioned above, for decades there have been many protests and movements to get equal treatment. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, a huge historical event came forth called the second-wave feminism movement. In this movement, the men and women that fought were focused on the issues with sexuality, family, the workplace, and reproductive rights. According to womenhistory.about.com, “Second-wave feminism also drew attention to domestic violence and marital rape issues, establishment of rape crisis and battered women's shelters, and changes in custody and divorce law” (1) During the second-wave feminism, the major event that took place was the effort to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the USA Constitution. Many people tried to create equality, “Unfortunately, the amendment was shy of votes from three states for ratification and after failing to meet deadline with the amount of states it required, the amendment never passed” (Burkett). Since the law was not ratified, this affected women male dominated careers.

 Without a law that enforce equal treatment women are faced with challenges in the workplace. One can argue that the wave of feminism took a toll on many females in their workplace. The act of females getting mistreated in workplaces is seen throughout history. In a journal article, Experiencing Second-Wave Feminism in the USA, three girls wrote narratives about how they experienced sexual harassment and unequal treatment at their work place. The three authors wrote about was personal and political career survival because of the unfair treatment. The authors used qualitative approaches that revealed more about the struggle of women to gain comfort and credibility in a career that is male dominant. Catherine, the author of Experiencing Second-Wave Feminism in the USA, spoke out on when she experienced sexual harassment in her workplace.  Catherine had no place or anybody to express how she felt because the culture of policy, administration, and men protecting other men; this left her no credible voice of protest. She later noticed going to the head of the corporation was no good either because the needs of the women interfered with established privileges (458). Their experiences proved that in the workplace gender inequality is a problem. One can argue that the wave of feminism took a toll on many females in their workplace. The act of females getting mistreated in workplaces is seen throughout history. 

 In sports the ultimate inequality is the gender pay gap. Gender pay gap is the gap between the average salary of a men and women. The US Women’s National Team (UWNT) is the most successful United States soccer team in history. However, there is still a pay disparity even though the financial workers for the federation confirmed that, “The US women’s soccer team are the driving force that generates a majority of the revenue for the federation” (Lloyd 1). When the two captains and couple of other players presented their proposal for higher compensation, they were told that the bargaining agreement they came up with was not rational. The federation also stated, they had a certain sum of money set aside for the women’s team based on their agreement (Lloyd 1). The gender pay gap between the US women’s and men’s soccer team is a small example of what gender pay gap in the world looks like. 

Since the federation did not agree with the team’s proposal, Carli Lloyd and some of her other teammates decided to file a wage-discrimination complaint against the US soccer federation to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). In the New York Times magazine Lloyd states, “The lawsuit had nothing to do with how much I love to play for my country. It had every right to do with what is right and what is fair, and with upholding a fundamental American concept: equal pay for equal play” (Lloyd 1) The women and men put in the same amount of effort but women still get less pay because gender inequality. A counter-argument mentioned by D.C McAllister, who has been on many national TV shows. She specified, “The women’s soccer team is number one in the world, while the men’s team is 27. Doesn’t that make the women as good as the men, if not better? No, to determine who is actually better, they need to compete against one another.” (McAllister 1) Her statement is not inaccurate because women are the greatest in their league. They put in the same amount of effort as the men to be one of the best. Just because they probably would not compete with any of the men on the men’s team does not matter because they will never be playing against boys.    

With every argument that is for “equal pay for equal play” there are counter-arguments. One of the counter-arguments is that the reason why men get paid more is because they have more support and higher television ratings. The reason why people say that men have higher TV ratings is because most people are drawn to watch a men’s sport than a women’s sport. The reason for this is because men and women compete at a different level, which makes the women’s sport lower quality. Since people believe this idea to support their claim about women being lower quality, these people also state that women cannot compete with men, that’s why they should not get paid the same. This not a strong argument because women soccer in the past couple of years had a larger fanbase than men. According to Walter, “The numbers from the Women’s World Cup final were way higher than the men” (1). The World Cup was the most watched soccer event men’s or women’s ever in the U.S. 

In order to have a bigger fan base you must be successful. The USWNT have proven that they are a very successful program. The women are ranked 1st in the nation while the men are ranked 27th. Another example of their success is the women’s national team has won three World Cups and is working on their fifth Olympic gold medal. On the other hand, the men’s team never advanced past the quarter finals. Kelly Wallace a, CNN News reporter, wrote an article on her experience attending a sporting event where she felt there was inequality involved. Wallace, discusses the different atmosphere between men’s and women’s collegiate basketball games. She went into detail about how the women’s team accomplished a great feat but fans and the community failed to show as much support because it was a female sport. Another example, is when South Carolina Men’s basketball team made it to the final four. The students that attend University of South Carolina went out that night and filled the streets in five points. When the South Carolina Women’s basketball team made it to the final four and won the national championship, there was celebration but not nearly as much as the men’s team. This provides recent facts that men’s teams are more celebrated than women’s teams.  

Another counter-argument that has been mentioned in many different articles is that women’s teams do not bring in enough revenue like the men to be paid as high as the men. According to Walter, “The USMNT is tethered to the World Cup, which brought in $4.8 billion in revenue in 2014. The 2015 Women’s World Cup’s numbers are not available, but it likely brought in a small fraction of that sum.” (1)  In fact, Andrew Das a reporter for New York Times uses graphs and statistics to discuss how much less women are getting paid. He states after posting a line graph of the men and women’s annual revenue over the last six years that. After years of lagging behind, the United States women’s national team earned more money than the men’s national team last year (Das 1) U.S. Soccer projects that it will do so again in the next fiscal year. Counter-arguments about how women do not bring in the same revenue as their counterparts are false because the statistics from the UWNT’s seasons proved that they are bringing in more revenue. In an interview with Carli Lloyd she indicated, “I understand that the men’s World Cup generates vastly more money globally than the women’s event, but the simple truth is that U.S. Soccer projects that our team will generate a profit of $5.2 million (on $17.5 mil. in revenue) in 2017 while the men are forecast to lose almost $1 million (on only 9 mils.). Yet we get shortchanged coming and going” (1) As mentioned above, the women’s team brought in more revenue than the men’s in 2015-2016 season and when the soccer federation made more projects it gave the women an upper hand because they will continue to make more money than the men’s but the women’s salary will not get higher.

Last but not least there are many differences on the pay disparity that cannot be explained. According to the New York Times, if the players on the USWNT win ever “friendlies” (exhibition matches) they earn at max 99,000 dollars yearly, they can get the base salary of 72,000, each player gets 3,600 dollars and a bonus of 1,350 dollars if they win per match (Das 1). In comparison, the men get paid 263,320 dollars yearly if they win all of their games and 100,000 dollars if they lose all of the games, per match that the men play in they get 5,000 dollars and a bonus of 8,166 dollars if they win (Das 1).  The men get paid more than the women whether if they win or lose. Lloyd stated, “The men get almost $69,000 for making a World Cup roster. As women, we get $15,000 for making the World Cup team.” The numbers speak for themselves. The men get paid more to show up than the women’s team get paid to win championships. Some people stated that the women’s team do not play as much as the mens so of course they are not getting paid as much. That is not a valid statement because Andrew Das stated, “Through the first few months of 2016, the women’s national team has played more games ,40 and 50 percent more, than the men’s national team” (1). The players on the USWNT did not want to bash the men’s team or start a fight with them. When Carli Lloyd first started playing on the national team she said, “There were no salaries and no health benefits, so yes, we’ve made some progress. But were nowhere near where we should be”(1) They simply wanted to help the younger generation for their future by bringing awareness to the inequality between men and women in the work place specifically in athletics. 

 

Warren Farrell wrote a book on the gender pay in the work place. The book focuses on how men make more money than women and sometimes do less work. Warren Farrell, the author explains that there are many reasons why there actually is a gender pay gap in the world not just in work places. Nathaniel Branden the author of Self-Esteem at Work stated, “Why Men Earn More is more than a book-it is news. News not just about pay, but about the underlying relationship between the sexes. A brilliant, lucid and persuasive book that will change both personal lives and government policy” (3). By saying that this book is more than a book, its news, is justifying that by exploiting these problems to the world can help fix the gender pay gap in other professions such as, professional sports. Later on in the book Farrell stated, “The average woman is cheated out of about $250,000 in wages over a lifetime. This creates a feeling that men have created a system “run by men, for men, to the detriment of women and which devalues women.” (144) Its natural to think that equal work means equal pay, but that’s not true for all professions. Women are treated in an inferior way to men due to the gender pay gap and the inequalities in work places.

In conclusion, inequality in the world has been a problem for a very long time, but there has been some progress, but still not enough to where there is equality. For instance, in collegiate sports there is a law called Title IX but the law still does not help with the gender pay gap and the extra privileges that the men receives. It takes more than one person to step up and make a change, but it only takes one person to motivate others to join a movement or to protest. I am not saying all women or women players should get paid as high as the men but the pay gap should decrease when the same work is being put in and the women have the same/more success. I honestly believe that the women’s soccer team should get paid the same because they have proven every counter-argument against them wrong. They proved that they were more successful, has more fans, and bring in more revenue. Although there has been strides to lower the gap on inequality between men and women, it is still an obvious problem in everyday society through sports and the workplace. As a woman I want to continue pushing for equality so in the future, young girls can continue to look forward to something.  Gender inequality will be a huge obstacle to overcome but through perseverance and persistence anything is possible.
