The Unspoken Gap

We know that women are not completely equal to men when it comes to sports. Women are physically designed differently and cannot share all the sports with men. For example, if a women was to play on a football team in the NFL, there would be no chance because women are not designed to take hits that professional football players are used too and able to take.

But what about the pay difference? Should women be payed less just because they are simply women? In soccer the, “total pay out for the women’s World Cup was $15 million, just 3% of the $538 million total earnings for the men’s side.”(Close) That was for winning the championship, and in the past women have played better than the men’s team. “ 44 sports pay prize money, of which 35 pay equally.” says Thompson and Kopczyk from BBC sports, “30% more of sports rewarded men better than women.” Yet officials are blind when to this problem that has been very noticeable throughout history.

So what’s the reason for the difference? According to the Atlantic, “Men’s team produces revenue and ticket sales that are double what they are for women’s team”. They are bringing in more money, which means they will be able to get more money back, also the women’s teams don’t get the endorsements and sponsorships that the men’s teams get which makes sense because the more money the team is able to bring in, the more the players are going to get rewarded. Some people may see women’s sports as less entertaining to watch because unlike the original men’s version of the same professional sport, it’s less original and less exciting to watch. This also brings up social customs, because even though we have gotten past the whole women are “supposed to only work in the house”, its still not something that’s common for female athletes to be as well known and incredible at their sport. Men are still seen as superior at sports.

Women work really hard to get to their success in their sport, like Serena Williams (professional tennis player) and Ronda Rousey (a professional boxer), who chased their dreams and never backed down. But when women reach success in a professional sport they come to find that they don’t get all the financial success that the men do, which has become a very upsetting trend in all of the sports. “ Women say that despite their success, male players are still getting paid significantly more just for showing up” says White from the Atlantic. This means that any guy can go and not try to be good and still get paid more than the girl that works really hard to be where she is.

A lot of sports reward with more money for example, “Golf, Basketball, UFC, Cricket, Cycling, and Skiing and all the ones that have a large pay gap. Tennis is one of the sports that has a smaller pay gap,” says Brennan from Forbes. Still we have not made any real efforts to make it equal among all the sports.

But the pay gap is not just in sports. It’s in the job field too. Women can do the same job as men but still not get paid the same amount, which is more upsetting for women because it’s the same job and they are doing the same thing, not any better or worse. As long as we are all doing the same job we all deserve equal financial success.

Picture Credit: Ashlynn Squires