Money, Power, Respect
How Women in Sports Are Shaping the Future of Feminism
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
An inside look at how women athletes are leading the fight for equality—on and off the field
Women’s sports receive a fraction of the airtime allotted for men’s sports, as well as a fraction of the marketing dollars, media coverage, and training resources. For every dollar that the NBA’s highest-paid player brings home, the WNBA’s highest-paid player earns just half a cent. But while misogyny in sports is particularly visible, it’s not unique. Women athletes face the same sexist barriers found in all career fields: the motherhood penalty, transphobia and misogynoir, underpromotion, and more.
But women in sports are fighting back, debunking myths that women aren’t as skilled, competitive, or capable of generating revenue as men. Drawing on exclusive interviews with prominent athletes—including Allyson Felix, Megan Rapinoe, and Billie Jean King—journalist Macaela Mackenzie shows how women are using sports as a platform for change. As women athletes push for the same things all women want in their careers—money, power, and respect—their wins are showing the rest of us what’s possible in the fight for equality.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Women athletes are at the forefront of the feminist fight for workplace equality, according to journalist Mackenzie's spirited debut. Focusing in particular on the $24 million settlement obtained by the U.S. women's national soccer team in their gender discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation, Mackenzie arrays an impressive arsenal of facts and figures to shoot down arguments often raised to explain why women's sports deserve secondary status. For example, she notes that the final match of the 2015 Women's World Cup drew 30 million U.S. viewers, an audience more than 50% bigger than the one for game six of that year's NBA finals, which featured Steph Curry versus LeBron James. Elsewhere, Mackenzie makes the case that lack of investment is the foremost reason why women's sports generate less revenue than men's, noting that in the early days of the NFL, the league lost money and most new teams failed within a few years. At times, Mackenzie's ardent advocacy can cloud complex issues, and she focuses more on remedying women's lack of self-esteem than on the need for structural change. Still, this invigorating study makes a persuasive case for the growing popularity and political power of women in sports.
