US football star Megan Rapinoe joined forces alongside President Joe Biden at a congressional hearing to highlight the pay disparity between men and women's sport.
Wednesday in America marked "Equal Pay Day" — which is how far into the year women must work on average to make up the pay disparity between what men and women earned the prior year. The Census Bureau estimates that a woman working full-time would earn about 82 cents for each dollar paid to a man.
Biden and his wife, Jill, hosted a roundtable with Margaret Purce and Rapinoe of the US women's national soccer team, and other members of the squad who attended virtually. The president then signed a proclamation honouring the day.
The women's team has won the World Cup four times, most recently in 2019. But it sued the US Soccer Federation that same year over wage discrimination. The suit was dismissed in May because the women had accepted a different base pay structure than the men's soccer team. The women's team plans to appeal the dismissal.
Rapinoe, who was named the women's world player of the year in 2019, has regularly been a prominent advocate for equal pay.
"Equal pay and equality in general is a deep and personal passion of mine," Rapinoe said in her opening statement.
"What we've learned, and what we continue to learn, is that there is no level of status, accomplishments or power that will protect you from the clutches of inequity. One cannot simply outperform inequality of any kind. I know first-hand that this is true.
"The Women's National Team has won four World Cup championships and four Olympic gold medals on behalf of our country. We have filled stadiums, broken viewing records and sold out jerseys. Yet despite all of this, we are still paid less than men, for each trophy, each win, each tie, each time we play.
"And if that can happen to us, to me, with the brightest lights shining on us, it can and it does happen to every person who is marginalised by gender."
"I feel like, honestly, we've done everything.
"You want stadiums filled? We filled them. You want role models for your kids, for your boys and your girls, and your little trans kids? We have that. You want us to be respectful? You want us to perform on the world stage? You want us to take the stars and stripes across the entire globe and represent America in the best way possible?
"We've done all of that. And simply, there's no reason why we're underpaid, with the exception of gender."
from WWOS https://wwos.nine.com.au/news/us-football-star-megan-rapinoe-join-biden-to-promote-closing-the-pay-gap/8f549e1b-c4aa-4ccd-8b08-01afcd8f2906
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