IN the recently-concluded Vietnam 31st Southeast Asian Games, as far as individual sports is concerned, both male and female athletes received the same amount of cash prize for winning gold, silver and bronze medals.
Other individual sports athletes, whether male or female, receive more because of prizes coming from their sponsors and home local government units (LGUs).
For team sports, the cash prize is divided among the members of the team.
Why did I point this out?
According to CNN.com, “History was made on Tuesday when, in settling an equal pay dispute that dates back to March 2019, US Soccer committed to providing the same pay rates for tournament and exhibition games going forward to its women’s and men’s teams.”
CNN.com continues, “Here’s how the story goes: in a lawsuit that listed 28 of the team’s players as plaintiffs, the US Women’s National Team (USWNT) claimed that they were paid less than the men’s team, and that it constituted a form of gender discrimination…. A judge ruled against them in May 2020, and the following year, USWNT filed an appeal.
The fight was acrimonious and public, but the team reached a $24 million settlement on Tuesday with US Soccer. Of this, $22 million is going to the players in the case and another $2 million “into an account to benefit the USWNT players in their post-career goals and charitable efforts related to women’s and girls’ soccer,” with players able to apply for up to $50,000 from this fund, according to a joint statement by US Soccer and USWNT.
The road to pay parity in US soccer has been a long and bumpy one with the statement admitting that “getting to this day has not been easy” and two-time World Cup winner Megan Rapinoe saying of the settlement: “We’ve been in this for a long time and coming from a long history of women that have fought to put this sport in a better place.”
This news is not just of consequence to fans and players of women’s soccer in the US. Disparities between what men’s and women’s teams are paid exist all over the world, with the size of that pay gap dependent on the sport and what conscious action has been taken to equalize pay.”
The article mentioned “disparities between what men’s and women’s teams are paid exist all over the world.” As for here at home, to my knowledge, and I’ve been around Philippine sports for quite a while, there has been no case filed against any national sports association for women receiving lesser pay than the men which constitutes to gender discrimination. We humbly request our brothers and sisters in the sports journalism profession to please correct me if I’m wrong.
Eliza Ayangwe, Editor of CNN As Equals writes, “The first thing is that leadership matters.” “I would say the most immediate cause of [the victory] was Cindy Parlow Cone taking over as the new US Soccer president,” says Steph Yang, women’s soccer staff writer at the Athletic, who has been following the topic of equal pay in soccer since 2012.
“Cone understood the players coming from her perspective as a former national team player. But not just that,” Yang told CNN, adding that, “after your predecessor resigns, it does become imperative that you start tidying things up as quickly as possible.”
The second is public visibility and support. Neena Chaudhry, General Counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, which supported the USWNT with its appeal, says of the case: “The law can certainly be a leader, but it is also about changing hearts and minds. Especially in the sports world, so much of what is behind the unequal treatment of professional women athletes is a cultural dismissing of women’s sports but [USWNT players] blazed a trail, elevating the issue in the public consciousness. People are paying attention” are lessons to be learned not just as advocates of equality, equal pay, and supporters of pay parity not just here but all over the world.
“The United States loves gold medal winners,” echoes Yang, referring to the growth in popularity of women’s soccer after the team took home gold at the first Olympics to include women’s soccer: the 1996 Games in Atlanta.
The third lesson is that investment determines outcomes. Yang, Chaudhry, and countless others have made the case that human beings have no natural preference for men’s sports over women’s. What you put in is what you get out and USWNT put a lot in at the beginning, resulting in them standing head and shoulders above the competition, which in turn created buzz and public support.
If you make a modest investment upfront, “you’re going to outperform 95 percent of the rest of the field,” says Yang. She contrasts the investment made in women’s soccer in the 1990s to the lack of investment in women’s college basketball in the US today.
Last year a video shared by Sedona Prince, a basketball player for the University of Oregon, went viral as she showed the small stack of dumbbells she said were meant to be the women’s “weight room,” followed by the spacious, well-equipped space used as the men’s weight room. In the aftermath, a study conducted by an outside firm, commissioned by the NCAA, found that women’s basketball was indeed undervalued compared to the organization’s men’s teams. The NCAA Board of Governors released a statement saying it was “wholly committed to an equitable experience among its championships.”
In Ireland, “In a groundbreaking deal for Irish sports,” their football association, the FAI (Football Association of Ireland) announced in August of 2021 that, “players representing the Republic of Ireland Senior Men and Senior Women’s international teams will receive the same match fees on international duty.” That folks, is not the luck of the Irish working for Irish women footballers, but pay parity working for everyone.
In the Vietnam SEA Games, the women’s basketball team successfully defended its gold medal. The women’s football team bagged the bronze medal after a very long drought without a podium finish in the sport.