Olympians Take a Knee In Protest of Racism and Inequality

Megan Rapinoe, the leader of the U.S. Soccer (football) team, knelt along with most teammates in protest against inequality in the most recent Olympic games.
 
The fact is that Olympic athletes have earned a public platform to make a statement about social injustice. Because they take physical limits to the unthinkable.
 
In the ensuing bronze medal match, Rapinoe defied logic as she scored from a corner kick, bending the ball into the back of the net. Through that kick, she became one of a handful of players who have accomplished this in Olympic history. Rapinoe’s kick was the second time she did it, the first being in 2012.
 
Said Rapinoe about the other Olympic women footballers from around the globe who knelt in protest,

“It’s an opportunity for us to continue to use our voices and use our platforms to talk about the things that affect all of us intimately in different ways.”
 

As just one example of global inequity, I will focus on the gender pay gap. I believe that inequitable pay is “economic lunacy” – actually affecting global economic growth. In fact, keeping humans down keeps humanity down.
 
The global facts speak for themselves. In 2021, U.S. women made $0.82 for every dollar a man made, which is one cent more than they made in 2020, according to PayScale.   According to the U.S. Federal Reserve Economic Data, men have earned more than women since 1979, the first year of available data.
 
When we think about the public stage of prize money for sports, there are some equities, for example, the men and women’s winners of US Open Tennis each earn $3 million, and the men's and women's Wimbledon singles champions each earned under $2.4 million ($2,399,520).
 
Comparatively, the highest paid female footballers (soccer US) earn as follows: Carli Lloyd - $518,000, Sam Kerr - $500,000, Alex Morgan - $450,000, and Megan Rapinoe - $447,000. Their salaries are a pittance compared to the top men: Lionel Messi - $126 million; Cristiano Ronaldo - $117 million; Neymar Jr. - $96 million; and Kylian Mbappe - $42 million.
 
Between these two examples in the public eye are the jobs that are filled by mere mortals. In the professional ranks, according to Catalyst, in the US, women working as accountants or auditors weekly median salary equaled $1,141, compared to the weekly median salary of $1,419 earned by men.  
 
Overall, the Pew Research Center reported that the gender pay gap held steady in 2020 despite some narrowing of the gap that occurred because of “measurable factors such as educational attainment, occupational segregation and work experience.”
 
Despite that, difficult to measure factors include gender discrimination, which may contribute to gender wage discrepancy. A 2017 Pew Research Center survey found that 42 percent of working women had experienced gender discrimination at work.
 
The European Union is no different. On average, women get paid 14.1 percent less an hour than men, according to data from the statistical office of the European Union. It was reported that “The European Commission is putting forward legislation that will force companies with more than 250 employees to report on the difference in earnings between female and male workers doing the same work.” In 2018, Britain started requiring companies with more than 250 employees to report differences in pay between men and women.
 
Read more: Developing Nations Through Gender Equity

According to The International Labor Organisation, gender wage gaps are wide in South Asia. Examples include Nepal where women earn 40.5 percent of men, and in Pakistan women earn a dismal 38.6 percent of men.
 
In the US, women of Asian descent may face worse wage discrimination. According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, “Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women who work full time, year-round are paid as little as 52 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men. Burmese women are paid just 85 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men.”
 
The fact is that paying women less is economic lunacy. The National Partnership for Women and Families noted that if American Asian women were paid on par with men, “an Asian American woman working full time, year-round would have enough money for approximately:

• Nearly eleven additional months of childcare
• Nearly a full year of tuition and fees for a four-year public university, or the full cost of tuition and fees for a two-year community college
• More than five months of premiums for employer-provided health insurance
• More than five months of mortgage and utilities payments
• Nearly eight additional months of rent
• Nearly seven additional years of birth control, or
• Enough money to pay off student loan debt in just under four years”

 
That is lost money that can stimulate economic growth and stability.
 
While my focus here has been gender pay inequality, it extends beyond that as witnessed by global protests of George Floyd’s death at the hands of a white police officer. Those protests influenced FIFA to relax its policy allowing protests against non-sporting events. It opened the door for Olympic Athletes to use their stage to peacefully protest racism and inequity. 
 

So, I ask, as a leader, in looking at your payroll, do women stand on equal footing – or did Rapinoe and others take a knee in protest of you? 

 
Do you know if your employees have inequality or pay gaps concerns in your organisation? Do you have a tool to gather feedback from your employees? Watch this video and learn more about Happily (or Budaya for those from Indonesia). Happily is an amazing engagement app built for organisations to drive engagement amongst employees. It has amazing analytics and also provides activities for employees to be fully immersed in the organisation's culture and values. To find out more, click here or email info@leaderonomics.com