Month: March 2020

Title:

Times Have Changed: An Act from 1963 is Not Enough

Introduction:

Four gold medals and four world championships later, the United States Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) is leading the way for all women in sports. The United States Men’s National Soccer Team (USMNT) have no gold metals and have not been to the finals of a World Cup. Still, the USWNT only makes a fraction of the salaries given to the USMNT. Both the men’s and women’s teams are managed by the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF). This is why, almost a year ago on March 8th, 2019, the USWNT filed a lawsuit against the USSF on the basis of gender discrimination(1). The actual lawsuit trial is currently in place for May 5th, 2020 in Los Angeles (2). The lawsuit claims that the women receive lesser pay, training facilities, transportation, and medical personnel than the men’s side. According to the lawsuit filed, if both the USMNT and USWNT won 20 matches a year, the maximum women would earn is $99,000. The average salary for a player on the mens team would be $263,320 (3). This gap would not be the result of men bringing in more revenue. From 2016-2018, then women’s national team brought in $50.8 million for the USSF and the USMNT brought in $49.9 million (4) . The gap in their pay wages in clearly not due to the difference in revenue and could be considered even more impressive for the women, as tickets for their game cost less than tickets for the mens games. In line with this stat, the lawsuit filed by the USWNT states, “The USSF, in fact, has admitted that it pays its female player employees less than its male player employees and has gone so far as to claim that “market realities are such that the women do not deserve to be paid equally to the men.”(5)

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 says that employers cannot discriminate wages on the basis of sex. Men and women who do the same job, that require the same skills, must be paid the same amount (6). This is the act under which the lawsuit was filed. The USSF released a statement in February which argued the men and women’s team do not do equal work, claiming “the MNT players do not perform equal work requiring equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions,” (7). However, again in the USWNT lawsuit, the claim “The USSF admits to such purposeful gender discrimination even during times when the WNT earned more profit, played more games, won more games, earned more championships, and/or garnered higher television audiences.” (8) The problem with the equal pay act is that it only applies to people of opposite sex performing the same jobs. For sports teams, it is very hard to prove that men and women’s teams are performing the exact same job where there are varying levels of competition and an unequal amount of games played, as some teams go onto championships or qualify for more tournaments. In order to prevent this complication in the future and ensure women get the pay they deserve, the Paycheck Fairness Act should be passed, with the addition of a fine that is given to any organization that disobeys the act.

Questions:

Should the title be more related to the USWNT?

Does my first paragraph has two many number in it/ Should I focus more on explaining the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act?

For one of my sources I used facts from the lawsuit filed, which is a pdf online. Would that be cited as a website?

Should I try to shorten the intro?

Did I stress the relevance of the issue enough?

(I could not figure out how to do superscripts on here, it would only let me do subscripts which is why they are in parentheses.)

Sources:

1 https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/653-us-womens-soccer-complaint/f9367608e2eaf10873f4/optimized/full.pdf

2 “USWNT Lawsuit versus U.S. Soccer Explained: Defining the Pay Gaps, What’s at Stake for Both Sides.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures, 24 Mar. 2020, www.espn.com/soccer/united-states-usaw/story/4071258/uswnt-lawsuit-versus-us-soccer-explained-defining-the-pay-gapswhats-at-stake-for-both-sides.

3 Austin, Sophie, and Louis Jacobson. “PolitiFact – Does the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Bring in More Revenue but Get Paid Less than the Men?” Politifact, 11 July 2019, www.politifact.com/article/2019/jul/11/does-us-womens-soccer-team-bring-more-revenue-get-/.

4. https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/jul/11/does-us-womens-soccer-team-bring-more-revenue-get-/

5. https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/653-us-womens-soccer-complaint/f9367608e2eaf10873f4/optimized/full.pdf

6.“Equal Pay Act.” History.com, 30 Nov. 2017, www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/equal-pay-act.

7. www.espn.com/soccer/united-states-usaw/story/4071258/uswnt-lawsuit-versus-us-soccer-explained-defining-the-pay-gapswhats-at-stake-for-both-sides.

8. https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/653-us-womens-soccer-complaint/f9367608e2eaf10873f4/optimized/full.pdf

In my issue brief, I will open up the first paragraph discussing a rhetorical situation. Since my issue brief is about equal pay for the women’s soccer team, I will start by explaining the lawsuit filed by the women’s team against the U.S. soccer federation which is scheduled to be held May 5th. I plan to slightly discuss the events prior to the filing of the lawsuit for some background information and also exactly what the law suit says. For my thesis, I am not sure if I should claim that the policy change should be exactly what the U.S. women’s team claimed in the lawsuit, or if my thesis should be the policy I believe should be made.

The exigence of this topic is not only that the lawsuit is happening soon, but also that the Olympics are currently scheduled to be this summer. The outcome of the lawsuit trial could significantly affect the salaries of the players. Since no one is sure what is going to happen with the coronavirus, all U.S. soccer games are canceled and no one knows what will happen with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. These events are how most of the women’s team makes a salary to live on.

I am not exactly sure who my audience would be. I feel like it should be directed towards companies/federations that determine salaries for women in sports, fans of women in sports, and supporters of equal pay for women.

The deliberation I was a part of was called “Mind Over Matter: Mental Health at Penn State.” It took place on Friday, February 28th from 5-6:30. The other deliberation I attended was called “Hello, Ni Hao, Namaskaar: How do we approach language barriers in American public schools” and took place on March 3rd from 8-9:30.

In my deliberation group, I was part of team overview. I believe there was 23 people at our debate over all and for the most part it went really well. Something I think my deliberation group and the one I attended did well was creating a solid information base. Along with both issue guides having information on each approach, many people brought their own experiences into the discussion. Many people in our deliberation mentioned their good or bad experiences with CAPS and used that to support their opinions on how CAPS should change, or how other mental health services would impact students. In the other deliberation. Almost everyone that talked mentioned what their high school did in terms of teaching language and said whether or not they thought it was effective.

Something I think the deliberation about language in schools did better than my deliberation group was focusing more on the values of each approach rather than the logistics of it (prioritizing key values at stake). In the language group’s issue guide, they did not outline specific solutions, instead they had had broader approaches like having federal regulations that require schools to teach language at a certain age, or letting each school system decide how to deal with language on their own. People tended to talk more about how much they value learning a second or third language rather than question how everything would be funded.

Our group made specific solutions to the mental health problem, like privatizing CAPS, or creating graduate student therapy sessions. This resulted in our deliberation to turn to the logistics of each approach at some points rather than the values, specifically the discussion about privatizing CAPS. Many people questioned exactly how we would do that and what would happen to people that can’t afford it when really the discussion should have been more directed to if we value better mental health care even if it means a higher cost.

Another thing I think my group did really well was weighing the pros, cons, and trade-offs of each approach we discuss. We had one person from each approach focus on just the positives of each approach, and the other focus on just the negatives. This allowed us to clearly see both sides of an approach versus getting caught up on one side.

This is something that I did not see in the other deliberation I attended. In their deliberation guide they had the advantages and disadvantages listed but the discussion did not always focus on both sides. For example, when the topic came up about requiring kids to take a language at an early age, most people agreed and explained why or talked about their experience but no one said much about why we shouldn’t force kids to take a language early. Only one person mentioned was that not all schools have funding and she did not believe it would be beneficial to her town. Other than that, most of the other discussions were all for increasing language learning in schools.

Something I think neither groups really focused on was including everyone in the room. Since both deliberations had a large turn out I think it would have been very hard to make sure everyone spoke. However, I did not think either group adequately distributed speaking opportunities by calling on people who hadn’t spoken yet. They always called on the people that raised their hands, which in both cases was mostly the same group of people.

While not everyone in each deliberation talked, I think the people that did were very respectful of others opinions and ideas and if they did not agree, they said so politely and explained the reasoning for their side. They were respecting other participants. I think moderators from my group also did a good job with ensuring mutual comprehension. Many deliberators asked participants for clarification. This is an especially important thing to do during discussions about sensitive topics like mental health to make sure everyone feels comfortable and no one is offended.

Overall, I think both deliberations went really well and certain values were agreed upon at the end of the each discussion. For example, in the mental health discussion, it was clear that people value the quality of help they are receiving. In the language discussion people valued the skills learning another language teaches you, like being able to understand other cultures.

The issue that I plan to discuss in my issue brief is equal pay for the women’s national soccer team. I picked this topic because it is one that I am already very interested and invested in. I have been following their story for a long time, and most recently, they have filed a law suit against the U.S. soccer federation on the basis of discrimination. The court case has not happened yet, as it is currently scheduled for May 5th. The USWNT also recently qualified for the Olympics this summer (if the Olympics still happen). The outcome of the court trail could significantly effect the women’s income for the year. Writing my issue brief I would argue for the policy that women should make proportionally as much as their mens counterparts, meaning that the women earn the same percent of their revenue that the men earn of theirs.

The cause of the issue is intentional. The USWNT receives worse training facilities, doctors, and transportations to games than their men counterparts and they bring in the same, if not, more revenue than the USMNT does. Both teams are run under the same company, the U.S. Soccer Federation. The difference occurs in which contract each team was offered. The women’s team was offered a much worse contract and were discriminated against.

One instrument I will use to discuss the policy will be identifying stakeholders. Many people work for the U.S. soccer federation. Increasing the USWNT salary will obviously take the money from somewhere else. I would research exactly how to give he USWNT the salary they deserve while not neglecting the ones that work for them. I would also like to look into companies that sponsor either the USMNT or USWNT and think about creating a policy that requires companies that want to sponsor one team to be required to sponsor the other as well. Mandates could be used to enforce this requirement. If a company did not follow this rule they would receive a fine.

Another instrument will be using capacity builders. They could be used to encourage support of this new policy. There could be advertisements about women’s rights or public speeches presented, showing why increasing the USWNT salary would be the right thing to do.