Reasons To Achieve The American Dream

People come to America for many reasons, most wanting to achieve their American dream. The American dream is “something people wish to achieve in life, in which freedom lets people have the opportunity for success and equality.” Everyone has their definition of the American dream and what they want to achieve in life. An athlete perceives their American dream as playing professionally in a sport that they enjoy while making a significant amount of money. The payment gap between men and women athletes has severely impaired the women’s chances to achieve their American Dream due to the unfair advantage of the male athlete salary.
In the article Sports in Women Empowerment, Nancy Theberge discloses how men are still paid a higher amount than women,
even after the Equal Pay Act was done. In 1963, the United States passed the Equal Pay Act, which is a labor law that was established to decrease the pay gap between women and men. Women athletes on average get paid 75% of what men make. In professional soccer, the women athletes get paid 72 cents for every dollar that the male athletes earn, which is less than the average. For regular games, the men make $5,000 a game and the women make $3,600, both without the win bonus. With the win bonus, a male athlete earns about $8,216 more than a woman athlete. The men are rewarded $100,000 for all of their games, even if they lose all of them, while the women only obtain $99,000 if they win all of their games. The men still earn more money on average even if they lose every single game, and the women earn less than that even if they win every single game. Even with laws passed, sports federations continue to unfairly distribute salaries.
In the World Cup tournament, the women’s champions get $2 million, while the men’s champions get $35 million.
“In the 2015 World Cup, the United States Women’s National Team got a $1.8 million bonus for winning the whole tournament, and the men’s team got an $8 million bonus after losing in the first round” (Barbara Reskin). According to Gender and Sex Diversity in Sport Organization, George Cunningham writes that “on April 5th, 2016, the five highest-paid players in women’s soccer, Hope Solo, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd and Rebecca Sauerbraunn filed a complaint on behalf of the entire team against the US Soccer Federation for the unfair pay” (Cunningham). Just coming off of their World Cup win, Hope Solo states, “When we push for equality, we don’t want the same thing. We just want it more balanced.” The women have the viewership record of all of the soccer matches in history with 26.7 million people watching for their World Cup win, so they felt like they were worthy of a more reasonable amount of money. In the article Gender and Sex Diversity in Sports Organization, the author George Cunningham claims the idea that the women are very underpaid, especially when it comes to the World Cup, and should be paid an equal amount. In the article Sex Differentiation and the Devaluation of Women’s Work, the author Barbara Reskin agrees with Cunningham and adds how the women filed with good reason and had proof and the soccer federation said that the request was
“irrational” and that they were “shocked that the women complained about that.” Female athletes believe that making the salaries equal for both men and women will make the women’s American dream more easily accessible and possible to achieve.
Many people argue that due to the salary of the women athletes increasing, their American dream is not affected because it is significantly better than in the earlier years.
In the article Women, Sports and Science, Sandra Hanson states, “Sports are a social institution constructed by men that reflects traditional male stereotypes of dominance and aggression.” This suggests that some people usually view sports as a man’s activity. Hanson then goes on to say, “Women are typically considered ill-equipped to participate in sports, and their participation is viewed as unfeminine and thus undesirable.” In the article, Advantage Men: The Sex Pay Gap, Collin Flake suggests that sports are considered a masculine pastime, so that is where the mindset comes from. He states, “Much of the literature on gender inequality in sport is devoted to media bias and conceptualizations of masculinity and femininity.” Society has this mindset that women in sports is unacceptable, which then translates over into their salaries, making their salaries reflect on how people view women in sports. The United States Soccer Federation was shocked when the women complained. They reasoned their feelings with the fact that the salary has increased frequently over the years and that the women should be happy that they are even getting that much. They also argued that the women don’t bring in enough money to be getting that much and don’t play hard enough to earn that salary. According to Gender and Sex
Diversity in Sports Organization, the women consistently bring in more viewers than the men and play as hard as their body will let them. The men still earn more than them for doing the same thing. Even though the payment gap is getting smaller and smaller as time goes on, the women still can’t live up to their full potential.
Female athletes believe as though equal payment is a necessity for them because it provides them with a good, stable salary that they can live off of and provides them with the confidence that they are as good as the men. Some sports, such as volleyball and skating, are fortunate enough to have equal pay for both males and females. The women that aren’t as fortunate feel defeated and that they aren’t being heard at all, but as the payment gap starts to become smaller and more women like Hope Solo stand up and fight, the soccer players and female athletes everywhere feel as though this “crazy dream” that they never imagined was possible is becoming closer and closer to being their reality.
Word Count: 698