With the rise of feminism and women’s rights awareness in general, there has been a large societal shift in attitudes toward issues like the gender wage gap.
As an avid sports fan, I have noticed more than a few rumblings about this very problem in the sports’ world, and as with anything which can be construed as sexist, quite a few have latched onto it and spouted off vitriol about the “inherently sexist” realm that is American athletics.
While I cannot say sexism does not play some role in the differences in pay between men’s and women’s versions of sports, I do believe based on the facts, it is not some grand scheme concocted by the powers to keep women down.
Basically, my point is that sexism is not as rampant in sports as some make it out to be. If it were, it would absolutely deserve to be called out and punished. However, considering the situation reveals a lot of factors making it a bit more complicated than just “men are better than women.” Let us take a glance at a few of the more prominent women’s sports, and analyze their unique predicaments.
Perhaps the most visible fight for equality in the sports world is with the U.S. national soccer teams. As recently as this past year, the women’s team rallied for equal pay, both in regular international play and the Olympics.
The most prominent argument against equal pay for women in sports: a huge disparity in revenue earned by the men’s team versus their own, held no water for them. In recent years, sparked by their 2015 World Cup win, women’s soccer has rivaled and even surpassed men’s soccer in total revenue, and with this as leverage, they won equal Olympics pay, a 30 percent increase in base pay and better per-game bonuses.
Andrew Das from The New York Times brings up a good point as well, which was true even before the recent changes.
Das said, “The best-paid woman made about $1.2 million from 2008 to 2015, while the top man made $1.4 million in the same period. Some women in the top 10 even made more than their male counterparts over those years.” 
The average pay is still quite skewed, but it is more than clear with the evidence we have that rampant sexism is not at play here.
We cannot come to a decisive conclusion based on one sport, so let us look at a few others. Another one of the more prevalent examples is when the women’s national hockey team fought for and received pretty much everything they desired with their platform.
Alix Langone of Money Magazine outlined what these benefits included.
“Travel and insurance provisions equal to what their counterparts on the men’s national team receive, a pool of prize money to be split each year, each player will be guaranteed a $2,000 training stipend per month from the United States Olympic Committee (which doubles the previous stipend of just $1,000), and larger performance bonuses for winning medals,” Langone explained.
When one takes the extra pay men receive from the NHL into consideration (for which there is no real women’s equivalent), women are about as on par with the men as they can be with their version of the sport being less popular.
We can also factor in women’s tennis, which receives 100 percent equal prize money to men, and with their sport spearheaded by a super-athlete like Serena Williams, this should not be changing any time soon.
I did leave one very important example out: the WNBA. From my research, they experience a huge wage gap even when factoring in the differing revenues and the fact their plight is widely known and frequently talked about.
In these circumstances, one could argue sexism plays a leading role. As such, the women of the WNBA deserve to have their voices heard on a grander scale and should see the hardships they face brought to an end. However, they are the only example in the U.S. I can find where the sexism argument is not being blown out of proportion to some degree.
Am I saying sexism does not exist in the other sports I mentioned? Of course not. It always will in some way. I am not championing the cause of accepting this, but in the current climate of jumping to conclusions and competing to be the most politically correct, people need to realize sexism in sports is not on the level it used to be.