Last week was a wonderful one for women's soccer in the United States. The United States Women's National Team won the 2022 SheBelieves Cup with a 5-0 victory over Iceland on Wednesday night. This is the team's fifth victory in the tournament's seven-year history. But the USWNT scored an even bigger victory on Tuesday, when a deal with the US Soccer Federation was revealed, putting an end to the team's protracted quest for equal pay. Current and former team members interested in the class action referred to the settlement as a "great win" and a "historical day."
It is, indeed, historic. While other female athletes, such as tennis players Billie Jean King and Venus and Serena Williams, the United States women's hockey team, and Women's National Basketball Association players, have advocated for equal prize money, comparable salaries to male athletes, and better working conditions, the USWNT case is thought to be the first time female athletes in the United States sued their employer for gender discrimination — and won.
In a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2016, the USWNT claimed that despite earning $20 million in revenue the previous year, the women's team was paid four times less than the men. The governing body of the sport, the United States Soccer Federation, has now agreed to pay the players $24 million.
While the United States women's soccer team won their struggle for equal pay, the result does not herald a victory for the greater battle for equality in women's sports. A true victory for equality would be for women athletes to be appropriately compensated, and for the federation to treat both the men's and women's teams equally, regardless of how much cash they create or how many titles they win.
The USWNT players were seen as deserving of equal compensation in large part because of their exceptional athletic achievements. Players and supporters have frequently emphasized the team's overwhelming competitive superiority, which had won four World Cups and four Olympic gold medals. This was in stark contrast to the men's team's dismal record. The USMNT did not even qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, marking the team's third consecutive missed Olympics, and has never won a World Cup, finishing third in the first World Cup in 1930.
