Female Pro Athletes

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Earning One Point for Shooting a Three-Pointer: The Unfair Pay Gap Between Male and Female Pro Athletes

“Pay gap” is a term used to refer to the unfair difference in salaries between men and women in the workforce--including the world of pro sports. Sports are a highly visible, very popular form of entertainment, and many young fans look up to athletes. If male and female athletes are not paid equally, it sends a message that no matter how hard you work, you will never be worth as much as someone society deems “better”. Thus, it is important to pay attention to this issue for the sake of both athletes and fans. Male pro athletes are paid more than female pro athletes because of disproportionate screentime and biased portrayals.

One major …show more content…

The BBC notes, “Many would argue that women earn less because the market dictates so, as female sports are ‘less popular’ and ‘not as good to watch’, and as a result they generate less media revenue.” (Perasso). However, even with very little screentime, female athletes are actually getting much more popular. For instance, according to Inequality.org, “the 2015 Women’s World Cup Final match drew between 20-24 million viewers, making it the most watched soccer game in US history. This impressive amount fell just short of the 28 million who watched the NCAA Men’s Basketball Finals” (Clark). This demonstrates that female athletes are rising against the odds and developing fanbases almost as big as those of male athletes. If female athletes can attract this much attention with so many obstacles standing in their way, they deserve to be paid just as much as the male athletes who have a much easier time attracting views due to how much more screentime they get. If sports leagues give women equal screentime, this evidence strongly suggests that female athletes would bring in lots of money and …show more content…

This unfair treatment doesn’t just hurt the athletes themselves--it also hurts the young fans who look up to them. If girls want to go pro when they grow up, they deserve to know that they will get the same amount of pay and recognition as their male peers. In order to truly start fixing this problem, sports leagues and TV networks need to cover male and female athletes equally, both in terms of how much screentime they get and the ways in which they are portrayed. Progress will not happen overnight, but every step towards change is a step towards

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