Essay Why Female Athletes Should Be Paid

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Women earn an average of only 77% of what men make (“Look” n.p.). This is even with the Equal Pay Act of 1963 in place. Some people believe women in sports do not deserve to be paid the same salary as the men that play the same sports. There is significant proof to show they deserve the money and have the right to it. The difference between the pay of the U.S. men’s soccer team and the women’s soccer team is substantial. There is also a major difference between the men's salary compared to the women's in all sports. Even with there being laws protecting these inequalities, there is still a big income gap between men and women. Female athletes should have equal salaries to their male counterparts.
As of 2014, the maximum salary a woman on the U.S. women’s soccer team can make is …show more content…

not getting paid equally, almost all female athletes get paid less than the men that play in the same sport. It is true the men’s teams are sometimes more popular than the sports played by women. However, the women are doing the same work and are only less popular because they are not advertised as much as the men. Women’s leagues like the Women’s National Basketball Association, Ladies Professional Golf Association, Women’s Tennis Association, and National Women’s Soccer League are all big associations that are affected by the income gap between men and women. In the National Basketball League (the U.S. men’s basketball league) men make an average salary of $4,500,000 compared to the women’s estimated average of $72,000. That means that the women make 1.6% of what the men make in the same sport (“Look” n.p.). The women’s teams often play the same amount of games as the men, if not more, and for the same duration. Even though the men and women play/work the same amount, “female athletes earn just a fraction of what men earn in the same professional field” (Bowen n.p.). Male athletes earn, on average, 5 times more than the female

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