If your team wins the World’s Cup once–or even three times (more than any other country in the world)–what can you expect to earn? A lot if you’re a man, not so much if you’re a woman.
Last year, the U.S. men’s soccer team, who lost, earned $9 million; this year’s winning women will get $2 million. The average salary for these players is $305,000 for men and $14,000 for women. And the prize for winning the World Cup? $576 million for men and $15 million for women.
Why the difference? I think it’s the way the world values women, as summed up by a tweet (now taken down) by England’s Soccer Federation, that their soccer team can now “go back to being mothers, partners and daughters.”
But I’m more concerned about attitudes in my own country, the U.S., including the ones that say that women, no matter how accomplished or hard-working, are worth less than men.