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What explains the pay gap in women's soccer?
The U.S. Soccer Federation says "market realities" explain the pay gap. Others say it's institutionalized sexism.

- The U.S. women's soccer team recently won its fourth World Cup title.
- The U.S. women's team has been far more successful than the men's team in recent years, yet men still receive higher pay.
- All 28 players on the U.S. women's team have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation over claims of unequal pay.
The U.S. women's soccer team won its fourth World Cup title on Sunday with a 2-0 victory over the Netherlands. Shortly after, the crowd started chanting "equal pay!" — referencing the claim that the United States Soccer Federation (aka U.S. Soccer) unjustly pays female players less than male players. It's been a long-standing point of contention between female players and U.S. Soccer — which is the body that governs America's national soccer teams — though it was only in March that all 28 female players on the U.S. team decided to sue U.S. Soccer.
The class-action lawsuit claimed that "female players have been consistently paid less money than their male counterparts. This is true even though their performance has been superior to that of the male players – with the female players, in contrast to male players, becoming world champions." The complaint added that U.S. Soccer also failed to provide female players with equal working conditions, promotion and support.
The @USWNT won their fourth World Cup yesterday. These players deserve more than just trophies, the team deserves e… https://t.co/xwG8FYe8wK— Gavin Newsom (@Gavin Newsom)1562607015.0
In a May court filing, U.S. Soccer argued that the pay gap is "based on differences in aggregate revenue generated by the different teams and/or any other factor other than sex." Last week, more than 50 members of Congress signed an open letter to U.S. Soccer President Carlos Cordeiro in support of the women's team. Some lawmakers also expressed support on Twitter. Meanwhile, the women's team's case is heading to mediation.
At this point we shouldn’t even be asking for #EqualPay for the #USWMNT - we should demand they be paid at least tw… https://t.co/npJbMUhnWL— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)1562520370.0
So, what explains the gender pay gap? How is it fair that the more-successful women's team earns less than the men's team? Does women's soccer simply generate less revenue? Is institutionalized sexism to blame?
There's no immediately clear answer, but you can get some insight by looking at the differences between the men's and women's teams in terms of revenue generation, collective-bargaining agreements and awards from FIFA.
Revenue
U.S. men's teams have historically generated more revenue than women's teams. But that's beginning to change — at least in terms of gate revenues, which consist mainly of ticket sales. As The Wall Street Journal notes in a recent article:
"From 2016 to 2018, women's games generated about $50.8 million in revenue compared with $49.9 million for the men, according to U.S. soccer's audited financial statements. In 2016, the year after the World Cup, the women generated $1.9 million more than the men."
But only about one-quarter of U.S. Soccer's total operating revenue can be attributed to gate revenues, according to the federation's financial documents. The other revenues come mainly from broadcasting and sponsorships, and it's difficult to parse out which teams contribute more to these revenues because U.S. Soccer sells sponsorships and broadcasting rights as a bundled package.
Still, there's reason to think that the recent success and popularity of the women's team is boosting revenues: Nike chief executive Mark Parker said that the U.S. women's team home jersey "is now the number one soccer jersey, men's or women's, ever sold on Nike.com in one season," according to The Washington Post.
Collective bargaining
The U.S. men's and women's teams have different collective-bargaining agreements with U.S. Soccer. The most noticeable difference lies in bonus structure and amounts. As a recent piece from The Guardian notes, male players stand to earn more money in bonuses as they progress through a World Cup. But that's just the World Cup: The men's and women's teams earn bonuses (of different kinds and amounts) in other games and tournaments, under a variety of differing conditions. Overall, men earn more in bonuses. But a recent update to the women's team deal has narrowed the bonus gap, and also made it so that female players earn a base salary (male players only earn money through bonuses).
In short, comparing earnings between male and female players is complicated, and a 1:1 comparison is impossible. For 2019, it looks like the women's team will earn more than the men's team — but only because of their extraordinary success, and the men's team's relative failure.
World Cup
Understanding how the World Cup factors into the soccer pay gap requires some knowledge of the relationship between FIFA and U.S. Soccer.
FIFA runs the World Cup. It determines how much prize money the winning nation's team receives. After that team wins the World Cup, FIFA awards a predetermined purse of prize money to that nation's soccer federation — but those purses vary drastically by gender. As The Washington Post notes:
"Total prize money for the Women's World Cup in 2019 is $30 million — the champions will walk away with about $4 million. For contrast, in the 2018 Men's World Cup, the champions won $38 million from a total pool of about $400 million. In other words, the champions from the men's world cup were awarded more than the total prize money in the women's tournament. So there's no question that there's a huge gap in earning potential here."
Why such a discrepancy? The men's World Cup currently generates more money, by far. For context, FIFA earned upwards of $6 billion from the 2018 men's World Cup. Meanwhile, the women's 2019 World Cup is estimated to earn FIFA about $131 million.
So, even though the U.S. women's team is more successful than the men's team, the numbers suggest that men's soccer is currently a more valuable product — especially on the international stage. That means the male players deserve to earn more, right? Needless to say, not everyone agrees.
A recent op-ed from The New York Times editorial board argues that revenue is "the wrong measuring stick" in this debate.
"United States Soccer is a nonprofit, exempted from taxation because it serves a social purpose: "To make soccer, in all its forms, a pre-eminent sport in the United States," the Times editorial board wrote. "It should be obvious to the people who run the federation that the women's team is fulfilling that mission at least as well as the men's team."
The piece also notes that it's U.S. Soccer — not FIFA — that ultimately gives award money to players, and therefore the federation could use its discretion to pay all players equally. In short, this argument acknowledges that men's soccer brings in more money overall, but says that's not the most important measure by which this debate should be judged.
(It's worth noting the obvious: This current debate about women's soccer is embedded within a broader culture war over gender equality and the gender pay gap, and it's likely that many are treating this story as a proxy battle in that broader war.)
Another point that the Times and others have made in recent days goes something like: Sure, men's soccer earns more money, but that's partly because federations aren't investing enough money into women's soccer. If they did, women's soccer would be more popular and generate more money.
What's next?
For now, the women's team and U.S. soccer are heading into mediation. The federation maintains that "market realities" are responsible for the pay gap in American soccer. But that could soon change if the women's team can strike a deal with U.S. Soccer on a revenue-sharing model.
"Under this model, player compensation would increase in years in which the USSF derived more revenue from WNT activities and player compensation would be less if revenue from those activities decreased," the 28 U.S. female players wrote in their recent court complaint. "This showed the players' willingness to share in the risk and reward of the economic success of the WNT."
U.S. Soccer "categorically rejected" this model. But the U.S. National Soccer Team Players Association — which is the players union for the United States men's national soccer team — has expressed support for it.
"The United States National Soccer Team Players Association fully supports the efforts of the US Women's National Team Players to achieve equal pay," reads the statement. "Specifically, we are committed to the concept of a revenue-sharing model to address the US Soccer Federation's 'market realities' and find a way towards fair compensation."
‘Designer baby’ book trilogy explores the moral dilemmas humans may soon create
How would the ability to genetically customize children change society? Sci-fi author Eugene Clark explores the future on our horizon in Volume I of the "Genetic Pressure" series.
- A new sci-fi book series called "Genetic Pressure" explores the scientific and moral implications of a world with a burgeoning designer baby industry.
- It's currently illegal to implant genetically edited human embryos in most nations, but designer babies may someday become widespread.
- While gene-editing technology could help humans eliminate genetic diseases, some in the scientific community fear it may also usher in a new era of eugenics.
Tribalism and discrimination
<p>One question the "Genetic Pressure" series explores: What would tribalism and discrimination look like in a world with designer babies? As designer babies grow up, they could be noticeably different from other people, potentially being smarter, more attractive and healthier. This could breed resentment between the groups—as it does in the series.</p><p>"[Designer babies] slowly find that 'everyone else,' and even their own parents, becomes less and less tolerable," author Eugene Clark told Big Think. "Meanwhile, everyone else slowly feels threatened by the designer babies."</p><p>For example, one character in the series who was born a designer baby faces discrimination and harassment from "normal people"—they call her "soulless" and say she was "made in a factory," a "consumer product." </p><p>Would such divisions emerge in the real world? The answer may depend on who's able to afford designer baby services. If it's only the ultra-wealthy, then it's easy to imagine how being a designer baby could be seen by society as a kind of hyper-privilege, which designer babies would have to reckon with. </p><p>Even if people from all socioeconomic backgrounds can someday afford designer babies, people born designer babies may struggle with tough existential questions: Can they ever take full credit for things they achieve, or were they born with an unfair advantage? To what extent should they spend their lives helping the less fortunate? </p>Sexuality dilemmas
<p>Sexuality presents another set of thorny questions. If a designer baby industry someday allows people to optimize humans for attractiveness, designer babies could grow up to find themselves surrounded by ultra-attractive people. That may not sound like a big problem.</p><p>But consider that, if designer babies someday become the standard way to have children, there'd necessarily be a years-long gap in which only some people are having designer babies. Meanwhile, the rest of society would be having children the old-fashioned way. So, in terms of attractiveness, society could see increasingly apparent disparities in physical appearances between the two groups. "Normal people" could begin to seem increasingly ugly.</p><p>But ultra-attractive people who were born designer babies could face problems, too. One could be the loss of body image. </p><p>When designer babies grow up in the "Genetic Pressure" series, men look like all the other men, and women look like all the other women. This homogeneity of physical appearance occurs because parents of designer babies start following trends, all choosing similar traits for their children: tall, athletic build, olive skin, etc. </p><p>Sure, facial traits remain relatively unique, but everyone's more or less equally attractive. And this causes strange changes to sexual preferences.</p><p>"In a society of sexual equals, they start looking for other differentiators," he said, noting that violet-colored eyes become a rare trait that genetically engineered humans find especially attractive in the series.</p><p>But what about sexual relationships between genetically engineered humans and "normal" people? In the "Genetic Pressure" series, many "normal" people want to have kids with (or at least have sex with) genetically engineered humans. But a minority of engineered humans oppose breeding with "normal" people, and this leads to an ideology that considers engineered humans to be racially supreme. </p>Regulating designer babies
<p>On a policy level, there are many open questions about how governments might legislate a world with designer babies. But it's not totally new territory, considering the West's dark history of eugenics experiments.</p><p>In the 20th century, the U.S. conducted multiple eugenics programs, including immigration restrictions based on genetic inferiority and forced sterilizations. In 1927, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that forcibly sterilizing the mentally handicapped didn't violate the Constitution. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote, "… three generations of imbeciles are enough." </p><p>After the Holocaust, eugenics programs became increasingly taboo and regulated in the U.S. (though some states continued forced sterilizations <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/" target="_blank">into the 1970s</a>). In recent years, some policymakers and scientists have expressed concerns about how gene-editing technologies could reanimate the eugenics nightmares of the 20th century. </p><p>Currently, the U.S. doesn't explicitly ban human germline genetic editing on the federal level, but a combination of laws effectively render it <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">illegal to implant a genetically modified embryo</a>. Part of the reason is that scientists still aren't sure of the unintended consequences of new gene-editing technologies. </p><p>But there are also concerns that these technologies could usher in a new era of eugenics. After all, the function of a designer baby industry, like the one in the "Genetic Pressure" series, wouldn't necessarily be limited to eliminating genetic diseases; it could also work to increase the occurrence of "desirable" traits. </p><p>If the industry did that, it'd effectively signal that the <em>opposites of those traits are undesirable. </em>As the International Bioethics Committee <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote</a>, this would "jeopardize the inherent and therefore equal dignity of all human beings and renew eugenics, disguised as the fulfillment of the wish for a better, improved life."</p><p><em>"Genetic Pressure Volume I: Baby Steps"</em><em> by Eugene Clark is <a href="http://bigth.ink/38VhJn3" target="_blank">available now.</a></em></p>The mystery of the Bermuda Triangle may finally be solved
Meteorologists propose a stunning new explanation for the mysterious events in the Bermuda Triangle.
One of life's great mysteries, the Bermuda Triangle might have finally found an explanation. This strange region, that lies in the North Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico, has been the presumed cause of dozens and dozens of mind-boggling disappearances of ships and planes.
Astrophysicists find unique "hot Jupiter" planet without clouds
A unique exoplanet without clouds or haze was found by astrophysicists from Harvard and Smithsonian.
Illustration of WASP-62b, the Jupiter-like planet without clouds or haze in its atmosphere.
- Astronomers from Harvard and Smithsonian find a very rare "hot Jupiter" exoplanet without clouds or haze.
- Such planets were formed differently from others and offer unique research opportunities.
- Only one other such exoplanet was found previously.
Munazza Alam – a graduate student at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
Credit: Jackie Faherty
Jupiter's Colorful Cloud Bands Studied by Spacecraft
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8a72dfe5b407b584cf867852c36211dc"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GzUzCesfVuw?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>Lair of giant predator worms from 20 million years ago found
Scientists discover burrows of giant predator worms that lived on the seafloor 20 million years ago.
Bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois)
- Scientists in Taiwan find the lair of giant predator worms that inhabited the seafloor 20 million years ago.
- The worm is possibly related to the modern bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois).
- The creatures can reach several meters in length and famously ambush their pray.
A three-dimensional model of the feeding behavior of Bobbit worms and the proposed formation of Pennichnus formosae.
Credit: Scientific Reports
Beware the Bobbit Worm!
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1f9918e77851242c91382369581d3aac"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_As1pHhyDHY?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>FOSTA-SESTA: Have controversial sex trafficking acts done more harm than good?
The idea behind the law was simple: make it more difficult for online sex traffickers to find victims.
