Executive Coach, CEO of Something Major, and author of the forthcoming book "Something Major: The New Playbook for Women at Work" (2023).
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When President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law in June 1963, he promised Americans that the bill now “prohibits the arbitrary discrimination against women in the payment of wages.” But as the bill marked its 59th anniversary in June, American women are still struggling for the bare minimum.
For proof, look no further than the recent settlement between U.S. Soccer and its women’s team.
Despite the bubblegum-and-girl-power headlines like the Washington Post’s “It took a revolution, but the U.S. women’s soccer team got what it deserved,” the settlement reminds us how far we still have to go on pay equity—not how far we’ve come.
Recall that U.S. Soccer announced it had suddenly settled with its women players after a protracted six-year dispute over pay equity. Despite the fact that the U.S. women’s team consistently outperforms their male counterparts in World Cup performance, revenue generation and household popularity, their reward for their overperformance was... drum roll... equal pay.
The U.S. women’s soccer team did not get a historic raise, as many heralded it. At best, they got right-sized, and even that’s a generous assessment.
What’s the difference? Well, it’s critical: A raise is a merit-based increase rewarding outstanding performance. A right-sizing is a realignment of compensation to accurately reflect current responsibilities and performance.
We must both celebrate the tenacity of the women’s team and also make sure we’re crystal clear on the facts: A deal giving them “identical economic terms” to their male counterparts is the absolute bare minimum that U.S. Soccer could do.
That’s not how U.S. Soccer saw it, though, patting themselves on the back as a bellwether for corporate leaders everywhere. As U.S. Soccer’s president told the New York Times, “It wasn’t an easy process to get to this point for sure. The most important thing here is that we are moving forward, and we are moving forward together.”
Are we saying that it’s difficult to compensate our highest performers as much as our lowest performers? We must keep asking these questions because U.S. Soccer is not the only organization getting top female talent at a discount.
As the data shows, the women of U.S. Soccer aren’t the exception; they’re the rule as we mark the 59-year anniversary of the Equal Pay Act:
• 82: The cents on the dollar a working woman makes compared to a man, according to the Department of Labor.
• 78: The cents on the dollar a woman entrepreneur makes compared to a man, according to Inc.
• 69: The cents on the dollar a working mom makes as compared to a working dad, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
• 135.6: The years the World Economic Forum predicts it will take to achieve gender pay equity at the current course and speed. Frighteningly, this gap has increased by nearly 40 years since the pandemic began.
• 42,300,000: The estimated number of working-age women of color in the United States, for whom each one of the aforementioned gaps widens, according to the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
We must stop treating talented, high-performing women like a great find on designer jeans at Loehmann's. This is not a deal on denim. This is our workforce and our future.
Looking toward that shared future, U.S. Women’s Soccer player Midge Purse told the Wall Street Journal what the settlement means to her and for the next generation: “I feel a lot of pride that there are a lot of young girls who are going to see what we’ve accomplished and grow up recognizing their value rather than fighting to find it.”
Let’s honor the anniversary of this landmark legislation and what the women of U.S. Soccer did by continuing the work—not resting on our laurels. When it comes to JFK’s dream of prohibiting “the arbitrary discrimination against women in the payment of wages,” we’re nowhere near the beginning of the end. We’re merely at the end of the beginning. Let’s not take our eyes off the ball.
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