For my portfolio project, I decided to use wix.com as my platform because it seems much more customizable than weebly.com. It offers many more templets and more freedom to move specific things around on the website. A possible problem with this website is you can’t change the template after you publish the site, but you can do this with weebly. I will have to be extra careful to make sure the theme is really the one I think best reflects my project before I publish it, or I will have to risk starting the project over again.
My first idea for the project was to create a website showcasing the videos I have made. These would range to ones I have created for school, like the advocacy project, to ones that I have made of my vacations. I love to edit videos but I currently have them all just sitting on hard drives. I think the portfolio project would be a good way for me to showcase what I’ve done. My second idea was similar to the videos, but instead it would be a website showcasing my photos from all of my vacations
These ideas came from the videos explaining the project when it was mentioned that the audience could be your grandmother. My grandparents live in England and they love to see all the things from are travels and other things we make. I thought this would be a good way to show them. However, I think I would try to make my primary audience possible employers so I could showcase my video editing skills.
Upon watching the description of the assignment, my first thought was to focus on the same issue I tackled in my issue brief, equal pay for women in sports. To do that, I would make a video, encouraging people, especially women in sports, to voice support. I really wanted to do a video format for my project. What I was wondering is if I should broaden the topic to women in the work force that are receiving unequal pay for the same job, since I already did so much on the USWNT. My goal us to persuade people that they should voice support for the paycheck fairness act so more people are exposed to an idea they might not be aware of.
While searching for ideas, I found articles that women physicians are paid less than men physicians which I think would be an interesting topic to include during this time.
At first I did not really think Photographer as Witness: A Portrait of Abuse was an advocacy piece. It was just a story, there was no facts or data or persuasion techniques. Then I realize that they didn’t need any of those things to get their point across. The purpose of the photos was to show an example of what abuse can look like. The images and captions behind them were very powerful and try to show people signs of abuse. I don’t really think the photos were ethical, since it is a very personal topic and a photographer being in the middle of everything I don’t think it is appropriate o helpful. However, is Maggie wanted to get the message across to people on how bad abuse can be and was ok with the photos, then maybe it is ethical.
Times Have Changed: Stand with the World Strongest Women
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 Soccer Team (USMNT) have zero gold medals and have not been to the finals of a World Cup. Still, the USWNT only makes a fraction of what is given to the USMNT. Both the men’s and women’s team 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 trail 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 $99,000. The average salary for a player on the men’s team would be $236,320.3
This gap would not be the result of men bringing in more revenue. From 2016-2018, the 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 men’s 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 hob, the 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 teams 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, they 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 is that it only applies to men and women performing the same job, with the same job description. For sports teams, it is very hard to prove that men and women’s teams are performing the exact same job when there are varying levels of competition and an unequal amount of games played. 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.
Problems with the Equal Pay Act
Equal Pay Day this year was on March 31st. Equal pay day marks the time a woman would have to work into the next year to make the same amount of money a man would make in the previous year.9 Three months. The difference, on average, is three months of work. The Equal Pay Act has been in place for 67 years and there is still this large of a gap. There are loopholes in the Equal Pay Act that make it much less effective. The act only prohibits wage discrimination based on sex. It mentions nothing of seniority, merit, productivity, skills, or anything else that would separate men from women.10 This means any of those subjective characteristics could result in men receiving higher pay. This makes it very difficult to argue that a woman received a lower wage than a man solely because of her gender. Even if a woman could prove this is why she received a lesser pay, she would still have to file a lawsuit and go to a trail to hold the company responsible.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the Equal Pay Act is the punishment a company receives if they are found guilty of violating the act. The company only has to pay the woman in question 2 years’ worth of the salary she deserves.11 After the two years are up, there are no restrictions that prevent the company to reverting back to their old ways.
Figure 1: “Cents earned by women for each $1 earned by men, on average” Reproduced from: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2019/03/26/467778/rhetoric-vs-reality-making-real-progress-equal-pay/
If such large celebrities and role models like the USWNT can fall victim to men in high power manipulating this act, what is happening to women who work everyday jobs. Who is standing up for them? The USWNT has a platform, and they are using it to inform the country of the injustices that are happening behind the scenes. Passing another act that fixes the current problems with the equal pay act will support the women who cannot speak up for themselves.
Advantages of the Paycheck Fairness Act
The Paycheck Fairness Act is an act, “to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide more effective remedies to victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex, and for other purposes.” 12 The Fair Labor and Standards Act establishes a minimum wage and extra pay for people who work overtime. The Equal Pay Act was an amendment to this act, as the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act will be. The Paycheck Fairness has multiple ways of ensuring equal pay. They are as follows:13
It prevents employers from fire employees for sharing their salary information. Women may not know they are being paid less if no one is allowed to share their information, which would keep women in the dark.
The act includes wage discrimination based off of gender, race, and ethnicity. The equal pay act is only valid if employees can prove they were discriminated against solely because of their gender. Many companies escape this accusation by blaming the discrimination on another factor. The paycheck fairness act prevents this.
It helps minorities achieve fair pay practices. There will be training programs to help employees negotiate better salaries.
It prevents employers from using previous salaries as a reason one employee is paid more than another.
The government will collect data on wages, ethnicity, race, and gender to help prevent wage discrimination.
Why the Current Situation Exists
One of the main concerns for the USWNT lawsuit is that it is difficult to prove that the women’s team did the exact same job as the men. The teams play different amounts of games and play different levels of competition. There are multiple arguments for why the USWNT should not get paid as much as the USMNT. Some say that men’s soccer is held to a high standard. Women’s soccer has so competition and it is much easier to win. America likes winning teams, so in turn the women’s team sell more tickets and more shirts, but they don’t have to do as much work. The USMNT also competes against the rest of the world. In many countries, especially in Europe, soccer is the number one sport. They need more money to have a chance to compete on the same level. Along those lines, since soccer isn’t the number one sport in America, it is not the highest paid sport. Men’s soccer is constantly fighting for top athletes to play in the MLS. Therefore, the USSF has to pay the men’s team more money in order to not loose athletes to other sports. What it all comes down to, whether fair or not, is that the USSF is a business. Businesses run off of money. The USSF claims “market realities are such that the women do not deserve to be paid equally to the men.”14 However, market realities show that the USWNT has been bringing in more revenue and less cost to the USSF for the past few years.
Sources: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/data-how-does-the-u-s-womens-soccer-team-pay-compare-to-the-men; 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-/.
The Fight is On and Off the Field
The USWNT and their fans have brought light on the pressing issue that is equal pay for women. After filing their lawsuit against the USSF, the USWNT received countless support from many organizations and even U.S. Senators. After the lawsuit was filed, but before the 2019 World Cup ended, a letter was sent to the president of the USSF, Carlos Cordeiro. The letter was signed by 50 senators and expressed their disapproval of the equality displayed by the organization.15 Cordeiro has since resigned from his position. Senator Elizabeth Warren tweet support for the USWNT saying:
“The @USWNT is #1 in the world & contributes higher revenues for @USSoccer than the men’s team, but they’re still paid a fraction of what the men earn. Women deserve equal pay for equal (or better!) work in offices, factories, AND on the soccer field.”16
Figure 3: “What could you do with an extra $431,360?” Reproduced from: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/news/2012/04/16/11435/infographic-the-gender-pay-gap/
The USWNT is not just fighting for themselves. They are fighting for the women at home who don’t have a voice and can’t fight for themselves. The figure on the left shows, on average, how much is taken away from a woman because of unfair wage discrimination.
Shortly after the USWNT celebrated their victory in the World Cup this summer, Senator Joe Manchin III mentioned the idea of a bill that would withhold funding for the 2026 Men’s World Cup, which the U.S. is scheduled to host with Canada and Mexico, until the USSF gave the USWNT the pay they deserved.17
Conclusion
The USWNT, an icon in America, has been fighting with their employer for years on the topic of equal pay. Such an influential group with the support of almost their entire country behind them can still not clearly get the pay that they deserve. One can only imagine what happens to all the other women who work normal jobs and get paid less than their male partners who are doing the same job. How are they supposed to make their voice heard? Who will fight for them? Passing the Paycheck Fairness Act will give them a voice. It will help them fight for the pay they deserve. It will help them be strong, and once and for all close the ridiculous pay gap that has been an issue in our country for almost 70 years.
Questions:
Do you think I should change one of the infographics so there isn’t two bar graphs?
