Why soccer remains an unequal playing field
I was 4 years old the first time gender barriers knocked me down.
My dream was to play Major League Baseball. Mom gently explained the pros allowed only men. If I wanted to play in the MLB, she said, I would have to not only have to be a great player but overcome cultural norms and discrimination. She told me about Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. I didn’t understand, but my dream died.
Every four years when the World Cup rolls around, I think back to that conversation and the ways gender bias stained memories playing soccer, my second sports love. (More on that in a minute.) But today's players, especially their work for equality off the pitch, inspires me to keep telling stories about inequities and the solutions to them. I still believe that if we know better, we can choose to do better.
I’m Paste BN investigative data reporter Jayme Fraser, and you're reading "This is America," a newsletter about race, identity, and how they shape our lives. This week we'll be diving into my story about why so many World Cup teams have players tied to American colleges or professional leagues.
But first, here are a few social justice headlines we're paying attention to:
- 'Like I was a stranger': What happens when state laws don’t recognize LGBTQ+ parents.
- A gay NYC dancer was fatally stabbed while voguing at a gas station, prompting a hate crime investigation.
- Airline wheelchair damage repair ''should not rely on heroic individuals,'' a traveler says.
- Is grad school worth it? New research shows students left with unmanageable debt
- Could a Black, queer woman top country music charts? She didn't – but her song did.
1999 started it all for me
As a data nerd, I researched the bios of all 736 women on rosters at this summer’s global soccer championship to understand how the United States has shaped "the beautiful game" worldwide. Only five teams do not have a player with ties to an American collegiate or professional league. The resulting story explains five reasons why, maps the U.S. teams with international ties, and tracks the career paths of five global stars. (Shout out to Jennifer Borresen, who created the art for the story amid her daughter's busy softball season.)
The data shows what it does, in part, because soccer opportunities remain unequal abroad, although we still have challenges here, too. Some of the teams defiantly advancing into the World Cup knockout rounds are playing despite being unpaid (Nigeria), with costs supported by GoFundMe donations (Jamaica), and competing in the shadow of a winning men’s team without equal investment (Argentina).
I discovered soccer watching the ’99ers celebrate their World Cup win on "Good Morning America." I craved the pure joy and pride in that Brandi Chastain photo. The debates over her decency made clear the double standards applied to women’s emotions and bodies.
My town, despite being on the larger side for Wyoming, did not have a girls team, so I played coed. I’d later learn my registration fee was donated and other families helped cover the travel costs my single mom, a house cleaner, could not afford. (I wrote about other sacrifices she made for my soccer dreams in this essay.)
As a teenager, I watched Mom persuade a coach to let me try out for the competitive (boys) team, which traveled to national and international tournaments. I was denied a roster spot because I was a girl, not because of my play. The coach said as much. By now, I understood enough to expect it.
At tryouts for the U.S. Soccer Youth Olympic Development Program (ODP) a few months later, I talked my way into playing with older girls in a scrimmage that led me to secure a roster spot with them. Finally! A break! That fall, the second professional women’s soccer league in the U.S. folded. Two relaunch attempts flubbed as I considered whether to play in college. I saw no future in soccer, so I quit playing at 17 to wait tables and save money for college.
I stayed in sports longer than most young women. By 14, girls drop out of sports at twice the rate of boys, a trend that got worse after the pandemic. And 70% who quit during puberty say it’s because they don’t feel like they belong in sports.
Fast forward to 2011
Soccer barged back into my life in 2011 with Team USA dominating at the World Cup, again. The youngest American, Alex Morgan, became the first player to score a goal and earn an assist in a final match. Morgan had attended the same regional ODP training camp as me, but I honestly can’t remember her amid all the Alexs and Ashleys and Jennifers from California who dribbled circles around me.
As I started my first professional reporting job, the National Women’s Soccer League was announced. I wondered what could have been if I had understood the power my generation had to shape a better world for ourselves and others. Morgan is an incredible example of someone using her success to increase opportunities for everyone. Reading about NWSL salaries and players’ second jobs made me grateful for my unimpressive journalism paycheck. I bought tickets to watch the Houston Dash with my godson.
These days, I’m happy placing second-to-last in the local rec league. My knee swells up after playing teams stacked with teen girls buzzing with the news that one of their local competitive clubs will soon join the semi-pro Women’s Professional Soccer League. I work with other supporters of the Portland Thorns and Timbers to raise money for local soccer scholarships, voting rights groups and other nonprofits.
Although I’m as frustrated as other Team USA fans with the disjointed first three games of the 2023 World Cup, I am excited to see the tournament expand to 32 countries.
It’s been fun to watch so many nations make clear that the beautiful game is more competitive than ever.
Progress seems slow in the moments inequality knocks the wind out of us. Makes us feel other. Tells us to give up. Insists this is the way it will always be. But soccer is proof that a few women fighting for each other’s rights to equal play and equal pay can make a difference.
Work remains, of course, but the pitch looks more level than it ever has.
Keep scrolling for more social justice headlines from Paste BN: