There has always been talk surrounding gender inequality. It has never been a debate about if it exists or not; instead, conversations have revolved around the different levels of inequality. This difference can come in many various forms from a level of a job or amount of pay. The wage gap between men and women in the workplace has always been known on a general scale. When facts came out involving the salaries between the U.S. National women and men's soccer team conversation sparked surrounding this. One of the primary reasons being because it shocked people that even the seemingly untouchable athletes faced brutal differences in pay. We are moving further into the twenty-first century where the fight for equality never ceases to close the gap between men and women. Because of this, the population wonders how not only the average woman but even the idolized athletes are working to improve their situations. 

If the words “pay gap” or “wage gap” come up in a sentence it is a safe assumption that the majority of people involved in the conversation understand what both of those terms mean. Yes, the average human knows of the wage inequality but do they know what separates men and women in the workplace? It means that for every dollar a man makes a woman earns 79 cents in comparison (Strauss). While the numbers do not appear to be that great at first glance, once annual pay is totaled women receive close to half the amount of remuneration than men do. This information is just on an average level, which is minuscule compared to certain job sectors. Disparities can range from close to $22,000 in management positions where men earn $75,000 and women $53,000. This number is petite compared to jobs involving legal occupations where women bring in about $56,000, and men made close to $107,000, this pay is a figure that is over double in comparison. What defines these numbers? How is it that men and women do the same jobs but yet can have a pay difference of almost half? The wage gap is only a small piece of the major puzzle that involves the fight against gender inequality. 

Many women fight to be at the top of their fields, but at the beginning of 2005, there was a steady drop out of typical careers. Why is this? Why would someone give up a perfectly good job? These are questions that were pushing to be answered. While the figures accompanying this information is also astonishing, one in three white women holding an MBA is not working full- time, compared with one in 20 men with the same degree (Hewlett and Luce). It is not just statistics but also examples of three high-powered women. Brenda Barnes, former CEO of PepsiCo, who gave up her career to spend more time with her children. Karen Hughes, who left her high ranking position at the Bush White House to go home to her son in Texas. Then Lisa Beattie Frelinghuysen was an incredibly successful lawyer, was president of the law review at Stanford and went on to work for a prestigious law firm. Shortly after giving birth to her first child only three years into her career, she quit. Comparing this to the average woman, is it typical to stray so far from their chosen career paths? What is the underlying motivator? After all of the facts were given one major thing stood out, women do leave. But it was not only women, for men the percentage that left was just barely smaller. These reasons can include caring for family members, both young and elderly, or personal health issues. On the topic of pay, the longer your stay out of the workforce the more severe your penalty is when you return. There is a chance to lose up to 40% of earning power if your time off is larger than three years. While there is a significant amount that leaves the workforce an overwhelming amount also push to re-entering. Not just to an extensive career but their particular job as before. 

In the workplace, women have not just faced sexism issues but also in certain areas there have been problems with race as well. As a modern society in the twenty-first and also late twentieth century there is an overall expectation that the issues surround racism are no longer present. While there are not immediate impacts involving racism, there are boxes that get checked and demographics that get filled while in the job process. Information has surfaced that there are situations where employers have a certain amount of ethnic groups they would like to employ.  In her case study, Katrinell Davis fought to clarify the understanding of race and gender issues through African American women transit workers in the San Francisco Bay Area. She took instances from different time periods, like the 1970s up until 2014, to show how events have changed over time. Davis investigates employee experience and how it has been used to thwart workplace norms and different administrative practices.

When people look at professional athletes, there is an image of someone who can work their bodies to a level high above the common man. In the sense of physical performance, these athletes reach top ranks that only some can accomplish, and they are a very select few. They give up family time, holidays, and important events in their lives just to ensure their success or improvement. It is not one particular sex that performs better than one another. Both work themselves to their maximum physical capabilities. When you play at that level there is no minor amount of effort, you either give it your all, or you do not last. The pressure of ensuring these peak conditions has appeared time and time again whenever an athlete succumbs to the use of steroids or performance-enhancing drugs. There is the fear of falling behind with a person's athletic abilities or even falling too little to where an athlete would have to give their entire career that motivates a person to risk it all. It is the world that shows no mercy. 

    In recent years information has surfaced about the different levels of pay among these “untouchable” athletes in their respective sports. The big three that have received the most attention include tennis, basketball, and soccer. Out of these three, many outsiders consider tennis as one of the more equality-focused sports. Where men and women both receive almost equal pay and amounts of spectators. Nearly a year ago a high-ranking official for the BNP Paribas Open, Raymond Moore resigned after crudely stating that WTA players were “lucky” to be able to “ride on the coattails of men” (Rothenberg). His comments opened many eyes about the pay discrimination that women face in the league. Despite being publicized that women and men are more equally compensated than other sports, the facts still remain that there are not as many tournaments with equal pay than spectators realize. A few years prior, at the US Open,  Serena Williams and Roger Federer went to defend both of their titles. Williams had already won this title seven times already, and Federer having won six times. Both incredible athletes but one of the major details concerning the final results was their pay.  Despite both of their statistics and winning history, Federer received $731,000 and Williams earning $495,000. Serena Williams is considered one of the greatest female athletes of all time, not only in her field but overall. She is a well known name in general not just in the tennis world. Despite this, she still faces gender inequality in a game where she has most consistently been considered an elite player since beginning her career close to two decades ago. 

Following this comes the conflict of inequality within the sport of basketball, both professional and collegiate. There are excuses for the different levels of pay, from revenue that the Women's National Basketball Association and the player's ability to negotiate their pay. Then there is statistical evidence from the massive differences in pay. After winning the WNBA championship, Diana Taurasi received the league's maximum salary of $107,500. This number can be compared to when the Phoenix Suns employed Dionte Christmas for 198 minutes. For that minimal amount of minutes, he was paid the NBA’s minimum salary of $490,180 (Berri). The minimum wage in the NBA is over four times as much as the maximum pay after winning a championship in the WNBA. The average salary for a seasoned women's professional player is around $72,000. This number is comparable to the average pay of a computer systems analyst or a University professor. It is different from the glamours salaries people have come to expect from professional athletes in the United States. Many push aside the numbers and decide to claim that the league is struggling. But is the WNBA struggling? David Berri states in an interview with Wbur News that “their attendance is about 7,500 per game. That is very comparable to what the NBA was doing 20 years into its existence. In fact, the NBA was not doing that well two decades into its existence”. What would happen if experts were to compare a star NBA player like Klay Thompson, from the Golden State Warriors to the player equivalent in the WNBA, Diana Taurasi even after we account for the revenue disparity? All of the troubles with pay have pushed female professional players to move internationally during the offseason and play for overseas teams. Even to the extent of the offseason game becoming year round. On overseas teams, women players often paid eight or nine times higher than their salary in the States. If this becomes a growing trend, this is where the WNBA would begin to have significant problems for the future of their league. 

One of the most publicized situations surrounding sports pay would be the U.S. National Women's Soccer team fighting against discrimination after the World Cup in 2016. This team represents the nation as a whole, and does not include the regional teams that play within the United States. Based on previous performance in past years it will know that the men's team is less than spectacular. The women’s team has gone on to win numerous prestigious championships.  From three World Cup championships to four Olympic championships. In the past year, 5 top women’s players stepped forward to push against the wage discrimination. Compared to the WNBA where people believe that their pay is justified after taking in all of the variables that go into the athletic event, the women's soccer team is more than qualified to receive just as much money as the men’s team. For example, during these games, men's players receives $5,000 for a loss in a friendly match but as much as $17,625 for a win against a top opponent. A women player receives $1,350 for a similar game, but only if the United States wins; women’s players receive no bonuses for losses or ties (Das). These numbers are huge in comparison; they are not even close to the 78 cents per dollar value. 

    For women’s sports, there could be massive pushback but it has just begun to happen. Although push back has finally started a major factor as to why women kept quiet for so long could be, fear. Fear of saying something and face the possibility of being benched for the season or even cut from the team. David Berri talks about an instance with Billie Jean King fighting for equal pay in the US Open, “she got wages changed by just threatening not to play anymore. And that is the story of sports. And we've seen this throughout the history of sports. If the players are not willing to walk away, they cannot change their wages.” With men's leagues, the majority of the teams were underpaid for a long time until they formed unions to help negotiate for appropriate conditions. While there could be other solutions to resolve the pay discrimination, this is what has been thought of in the time being. Within the next few years there will be an increase of discussions involving professional athletes and pay, and how to move forward from where they are now. 

While many have argued the topic of gender inequality, there is another concept that should be used in place, gender neutrality. Yes, there is bias in various situations but whenever people speak about inequalities that women face. Inequality is not subjected to just one gender just as it is not unique to just one race. For women their most common opponent with discrimination is wages. For men, their typical opponent is the inability to foster a family without a mother. A child is made up of two parents that are undebatable, while there can be situations that could alter the typical definition of parents. Although the mother carries, the child, one could not say that the child is more the mother's child than the father's. One of the most significant time periods in an infant's life is when it must feed on the mother. In child custody cases one of the most numerous reasons for the mother receiving full parenthood is rooted in those rights, the mother carried the child to term, and the baby naturally feeds from the mother. Therefore most assume that the child is more dependent on the mother. In a family court case in California, a father was aiming to gain custody of an infant from his brief girlfriend. He did not see the equality being kept from his child because he could not control the ability to breastfeed his child. In retaliation, he filed a disability motion, as it was a physical disability that he was unable to breastfeed. It was a motion that the court did take into consideration and looked at seriously. Rather than having a gender inequality state of mind he went at the situation from a different angle. The father aimed to have the courts to overlook this major fact because it is usually necessary in child custody cases, but he made them take into consideration that it was something he was unable to change about himself. 

Although the controversy surrounding gender inequality has recently become a major topic of conversation, it would be incorrect to say that people have not been already working against it. Today's world has powerful and influential women that are not afraid to let social standards silence their common rights. Shock has not diminished since the public was re-enlightened the reality that professional female athletes face wage discrimination as well. Where even the best of best athletes have to fight for something so simple as equality. There is not a guarantee that wage discrimination or discrimination in general will completely disappear within the upcoming years, it will take time and persistence. As the world keeps updating and changing the gap between the two genders gets smaller every day.
