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Women 's Televised Sporting Event

Good Essays

June 25th, 2015 was the day I hopped onto a Greyhound bus to Canada with high hopes to see the World Cup. Even though Team USA were the favorites to win, tickets happened to be inexpensive, the games were being played on 32- year old stadiums with minimum seating, and there was little to none preview coverage of the tournament. When I told people I was going, most of them would say, “There’s a World Cup this year?” There was, only it’s being played by women, not men.
At the end of that month, millions of viewers watched the final match between USA and Japan, making it one of the most watched women’s televised sporting event in history. People started to recognize players by their first names, purchased a few jerseys, and even attend one of their victory games. However, some might wonder why audiences only see these world-class players, like Abby Wambach, who holds the international goal-scoring record—for women and men—for a few weeks every two years at the World Cup or the Olympics. But most, even those who care about equality for women, won’t consider how different these athletes’ careers are compared to those of men who do the exact same thing for a living.
Today, the gap between men’s and women’s wages, the tiny fraction of female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies, and the lack of women in STEM careers receive regular coverage in both the mainstream and feminist media. The gender inequities in sports are just as vast as those faced by women in corporate offices or in the

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