The women’s team has won the world championship three times, including last year. They’ve trounced all other women’s teams to take the gold at the Olympics four times. The US men’s soccer team has done none of these things and yet they are paid far more! Yes, that’s right. The highest paid women on the team earn $1.2 million, and the highest paid men earn $1.4 million. When the US men lose a match they still are awarded $5,000 each. When the women lose — it’s nada. Nothing. Wait, what? That is so unfair.
That’s why the women’s team has been very publicly battling the U.S. Soccer Federation to earn the same big bucks as the men for the same hard work. And for winning! “I think it’s really great that so many women from different work forces are speaking up about equal pay and the big pay discrepancy,” US soccer team star, Alex Morgan told HollywoodLife.com while discussing her new partnership with Chobani. “The fact that we are still talking about it means there’s still a lot to be done, I feel like continuing until there isn’t any fight left needed. I’m happy we spoke up. We have had a lot of positive support on our end, we want to look forward to playing in the Olympics but things we feel like need to be voiced and we have the platform to use our voice and use it more than some other people who don’t have our platform used it to file the complaint.”
US soccer team star Morgan Brian echoed her sentiments in an exclusive interview:”We’ve had to prove over the years that we’ve done the same job as men and we are winning. We are doing the same things that they do every single day, and we’re making money for the [U.S. Soccer Federation]…I think [we] have to stand up for ourselves and continue to push for more.” You go girls, and all girls of the US winning women’s soccer team!
But your predicament is not the least bit unusual. In fact, it’s typical. Women in the US earn just 78 cents on the dollar of a man’s pay, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. That’s why it’s so important that high profile women like Robin Wright both push to be paid the same salary as men, AND that they tell the world about it. “I was like, ‘You better pay me, or I’m going to go public,'” she told Netflix.
“And they did,” she revealed at an event called “Insight Dialogues” at a Rockefeller Foundation event on May 17. “I was like, I want to be paid the same as Kevin [Spacey, who plays her husband, U.S. President Frank Underwood, on House of Cards].”
It’s believed that Kevin was making $500,000 per episode versus Robin’s $420,000 before she drew her line in the sand. So thank you, Robin, for taking that stand, demanding pay parity and sticking to your guns until you got it. Thank you to the women’s soccer team for insisting that you be paid equally to men.
As team member Morgan Brian puts it: “What can we push for to allow girls growing up to play the sport they love and be on the same pay as a male player?”
Yes, exactly! We need what’s fair and right for women!
Do you agree, Hollywoodlifers? Will high-profile women insisting on equal pay help all women? Let me know.