Recent Updates #10

On Sunday, July 7^th, the United States women’s national soccer team won the world cup final 2-0 against the Netherlands. There were a few controversial topics that came up out of this win; however, a major topic that has resurfaced is the gender pay gap. This was, and continues to be, a problem between men and women in businesses/sports/etc. in our economy.

           

I found a lot of information I am going to be discussing in this blog post in an article titled, “Women’s Soccer Put Equal Pay On The Agenda. Now What?”, on HuffPost. The article states that during a parade in honor of the women’s soccer team in New York, there were chants that encouraged equal pay. These chants brought this common economic topic onto new platforms that it had never been discussed on before.

The article then provided some background on this topic stating that, “Right now in the U.S., women are paid on average 80 cents for every dollar a man earns, and the pay gap is even worse for women of color. The women’s team wage gap is even more shocking ― they’re making just 38 cents on the dollar compared to the men’s team, according to the discrimination suit the women filed in March” (Peck). Now, there are many reasons behind this including things such as paid leave, discrimination in the workplace, and ultimately our culture/sexism. Women have historically always made less than men and this is a topic that I feel needs to be addressed and taken care of in our growing and modern culture.

The idea behind this is generally that men are supposed to be the “bread-winners” of families and women are supposed to take lower paying jobs in order to get paid leave, more time with their children, and more. However, I think it is extremely unfair to place this stereotype on all women. There are plenty of women, especially nowadays, that prioritize their work over everything and work very hard at what they do.  There is, in my mind, absolutely no reason that a woman should be paid less than a man for producing the same quality work. I think it is great that the women’s soccer team brought national attention to this and this would be very beneficial to our economy. Women would be more encouraged to work and go to schooling, which ultimately would increase worker motivation and human capital. However, as of right now, there does not seem to be a solution to this problem, although it is very important that there eventually is one.

Source:

Peck, Emily. Women's Soccer Put Equal Pay On The Agenda. Now What? 2019. HuffPost, HuffPost, www.huffpost.com/entry/us-womens-national-team-equal-pay-now-what_n_5d263c6ce4b0583e482b4c97.