March 10, 2022 • 29 mins
This week, Chelsea is sitting down with soccer star and equal pay advocate Megan Rapinoe to look at women in sports – the progress we’ve made toward equality and what needs
to happen next.
Megan and Chelsea are talking on the heels of a major victory off the field —a settlement designed to bring equal pay to our US National Soccer Team women players after a years-long
fight led by Megan and her teammates.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Chelsea Clinton and this season on in fact,
we're celebrating Women's History Month. I'll be talking with trailblazing
women at the top of their fields about their personal journeys,
the progress we've made, and how far we still have
to go. Today, I am thrilled to be talking about
(00:23):
women in sports with Megan Rapino, soccer star, equal rights
and equal pay advocate and the person my children know
is the face of soccer and the lady with the
pink care We're talking shortly after Megan and her teammates
achieved a huge win off the field and one many
people doubted was ever possible, a settlement designed to bring
equal pay to our US national soccer team women players.
(00:46):
It's a fight Megan may not have expected as a
young player, but it's one she's been a vital part
of and when she's often been the face of. Megan
began playing for the national team in two thousand and six,
but she burst onto the public stage and became a
viral sensation. During the eleven World Cup quarterfinal in Germany.
It came I vividly remember watching. In case you weren't watching,
(01:09):
Megan made a stunning forty five yard passed to Abby Wambach,
who headed the ball into the goal, tying the score
with about a minute left in the match. It's been
called one of the greatest goals in women's soccer history,
though the team later lost the final that year. I
guess I didn't bring good luck, even though I was
cheering in the stands that night. It brought home gold
at the Olympics and won the World Cup in twenty nineteen,
(01:32):
where Megan was awarded the Golden Boot for being top
scorer and the Golden Ball for being the best player
in the tournament. Not surprisingly, she was also named FIFA's
Best Woman Player of the Year. And yet, even though
chance of equal pay could be heard throughout the stadium
in France after the team's victory, Megan and her teammates
still had to fight an uphill battle with the US
(01:53):
Soccer Federation for equal pay and equal working conditions with
the men's teams. A year later, in the former head
of US Soccer claimed indisputable science showed that women players
were inferior to men, and the team suffered a major
court loss. But the women in the national team refused
to stop fighting, and in February, four million dollar settlement
(02:14):
was reached right before Megan and I spoke. It awarded
the players twenty two million dollars, with an additional two
million dollars going towards reporting players and their post soccer
careers and charitable efforts. Importantly, it also included a pledge
to equalize pay between the men's and women's national teams
collective bargaining agreement. Megan is a leader and a role
model on the field and off in sports and beyond
(02:37):
for women and girls and men and boys. The impact
of her work and her example will be felt for
years and for generations to come. I asked Megan how
she was feeling about the settlement given the years of blood,
sweat and tears that went into reaching this moment. Oh gosh,
it's really as hard to put into words. You know,
(02:59):
something that you shouldn't have to do, but you know
that you have to do it, and so there's that
battle constantly, and just like you said, Um, I don't
know if there was blood, but certainly a lot of
sweat and tears going into it, and just such an
arduous process and long, oh and so long in the
(03:19):
courts and COVID. I'm just happy that we've come to
this day and that we were able to get to this.
I mean, I think the best part of the settlement
is what it will provide going forward. To be honest,
you know, I was saying yesterday that I can never
get this time back. I can never be undiscriminated against.
I could never unhear the things that they've said to us,
(03:41):
or the way that they've looked at us, or the
way that they've treated us over all of these years.
There's not really um I'm sure I could think of
a dollar amount that's bigger than twenty four that would
that would smooth it over a little bit, but we're
not there. But the justice really comes from the next
generation of players never having to deal with any of
this again. Obviously, that's contingent upon the negotiation of the
(04:04):
collective Bargaining Agreement, which the deadline is I think has
been pushed back to the end of March, but both
sides seem very confident about that and moving forward. I
think it's something that the Federation has now understood it
has to end. I mean, it's just like, what are
we doing. I've been saying this for a long time.
When we win, everyone wins. And we can move on
(04:25):
and work to repair the relationship that has been so
damaged and we can hopefully move forward together. If they win,
we're literally in the exact same spot and everyone loses
them us, fans, the next generation, everything. So it's surreal.
It's hard to even put into words, but I think
it's something that we're all incredibly proud of and something
(04:46):
that we can really genuinely stand behind. And I think
everyone's looking forward to mending that relationship and moving on
to the next step of doing what we want to do,
which is playing soccer and being able to do that
to the fullest of our ability and also grow the
game and grow the business of soccer. Megan, as you say,
while the back pay is hugely important and certainly I
(05:09):
hope validating the fact that the Federation has committed to
equal pay into perpetuity, there's a really really big deal.
It's a really big deal. Yeah, it's a really big deal.
It wasn't a straight line from when you filed your
complaints six years ago, two days ago and you lost
(05:30):
a pretty significant ruling in which you were in the
process of appealing. Was there a moment though, when you
realized you would win, that right would prevail, that equal
pay would happen. I honestly always felt that, probably because
I'm really naive and the lyrical system and I don't
know everything, or you're just an optimist. Yeah, I'm I'm
(05:50):
a forever optimist post I don't know totally the ins
and outs of all the legal system. So even the
ruling in California, it was really disappointing, but I was
just like, oh my god, this is insane. We're obviously
gonna win on the appeal, and I just feel like
I know my experience, and I know the things that
have been said to me. I know the way that
we've been looked at, you know, publicly and privately. I
know that we asked for the exact same pot of
(06:13):
money as the men, and I know that we are
categorically denied that because they didn't think our market value
was there or whatever they said at the time. So
it was just a matter of getting to it and
sticking to it. And I think even just looking back,
just an other sort of movements, and like progress in history,
it's never just like the oppressed person goes to the
(06:34):
oppressors like, hey, just by the way, you're not acting
really in the best way. It'd be great if you
could stop that, and they're like, oh, yeah, perfect, okay,
no problem. Oh my gosh, we had no idea. It's
long and arduous, and it takes not only a changing
of the hearts and minds, which honestly probably comes last,
but and actually like changing the structures in the day
to day systems of how people work and how decisions
(06:55):
are made, and what people are making those decisions, and
who's really at the sort of leadership to table or
in the boardroom. When you were a little kid playing
soccer with your sister and you're like, oh, maybe I
can be a professional soccer player. Did you realize how
much more labor you would have to do than just
play on the field, that I would have to have
like ten other jobs. Yeah? No, No, I didn't realize
(07:18):
that I might have just taken an easier one job
kind of route. And how much would we all have lost? Right,
my kids coodn't have cheered on the lady with the
pink hair, Yeah right, No, I mean I had no idea. Obviously.
It's like I knew that women's and men's sports weren't
on the same playing field because I grew up only
watching men's sports because that's all that was on TV
(07:40):
really until I was probably twelve or thirteen, and certainly
with the ninety nine World Cup that changed everything. But no,
I really had no idea. But when you were little,
you and your sister played on co ed teams and
played on boys teams. So even when you were little,
did you see the boys being treated differently or were
you just so much better than the boys you were
(08:01):
kind of impervious to that. We grew up in a
pretty small town, so I mean, my sister and I
were pretty dominant in a lot of ways, and and definitely,
like you know, up until the gender started to be
sort of split, we were almost better than everyone where
we noticed that. We actually played on a boys team
for a period of time. I think we were like twelve.
(08:22):
The boys on our team didn't really care because obviously
they knew that we were good. The boys on the
other teams, frankly didn't really seem to care. It was
the parents that really cared. And then that sort of
made the boys on the other team be like, yeah,
they shouldn't be out here, probably because we were busting them,
but I think it was the parents frankly, just like
seeing something different and having things be a little different,
(08:44):
I think, and just immediately being resistant to that or
uncurious about that. I mean, you see that even now,
it's always the old people that are getting some of
the old people that are getting in the way. And
was there a moment where you realized that it wasn't
just fun, but it could be your job. I think
it was my freshman year of college was my first
(09:05):
time being brought up to the full national team. So
playing in a couple of games and seeing Okay, they're
doing this for a living, Like Abby's doing this for
a living. She has a nice apartment and like drives
her own car. So it kind of I think being
on the national team at that age, I was kind
of like, Okay, this is like a real thing. It
does mean something to It means a lot to me
(09:27):
actually as a mom of two sons, and from my
five year old, you are what he thinks that when
he thinks of soccer, and so I see how the
visibility of role models matters. And we often in conversations
like this but a lot of time talking about how
much it matters for our daughters. It certainly does but
it matters for our sons too. It matters that our
boys look up to strong, powerful, persistent, kind women. We'll
(09:53):
be right back, stay with us. One of the things
that I think so many people admire, or the opposite admire,
but certainly for my purposes admire about you is that
(10:14):
you have never vowed to the exhortations to just be
an athlete or just focus on dribbling a ball. Is
your activism that isn't only confined to equal pay, but
thankfully is far more capacious, something that you kind of
chose to lean into or even when you were a
(10:35):
kid or a college student, part of who you were,
part of who you've always been. I think a little
bit of both my sister and I both I don't
know why we totally have this, but we definitely have
a bristle towards authority, and particularly authority that we feel
is like using their power in sort of nefarious ways
(10:56):
or taking advantage or manipulating. I think that's part of it.
I think our parents from a young age really instilled
in us, and I think because we excelled at sports
at such a young age, we were kind of the
cool kids in school, and they were like okay, but
to be clear, that doesn't mean anything, and that's not
what makes you cool is the fact that you're popular
(11:17):
in school. What makes you like you need to be
a good person on top of that, and also like
use it for good, Like you guys have a power,
whether you want it or not, and you have a
responsibility to do good with that. So I think that
was sort of stealth instilled in us when we were younger.
And then I think just seeing my own reality, I mean,
being on the women's national team at a young age
(11:40):
and starting to learn about the pay and equity that
every person before me had experience and that I walked
into and started to experience immediately. Being gay as well
gave me like the first foundation of what it meant
to be an ally, because I was asking people of
that before I even had the language of ally or
activists or anything. I was like, I'm pretty sure gay
(12:00):
marriage is the way to go. I'm pretty sure we
should just be able to be who we are, and
we need other people to say that who aren't in
you know, our similar situation. And I think that really
set the foundation going forward for other forms of activism,
whether it's kneeling with Colin and what he was saying
or pay equity. I think it just became very clear
(12:21):
to me that we had some platform with the national team,
and there was something a little bit different about it.
I think being able to represent America all the time
and all of America. Yeah, all of America, whether you're
like it or not, I represent you all over the
country five times a year, and then twice every four
years with the Olympics and the World Cup. On a
(12:42):
global stage, it was kind of like, Okay, we're actually
able to say a lot more and bring a broader
message to a lot of different places in the country
that maybe we don't live in or wouldn't have access to.
And I think I'm just outspoken in general. But I
think kind of like after two thousand eleven, our our
World Cup was in Germany. We ended up losing in
(13:04):
the final, but we came home to like this here
and you had an iconic moment with Abby. Yeah, yeah,
we did, we did. I mean, that's probably one of
the best moments of my career. Two thousand nineteen is
tough to top. At that particular moment was just totally insane.
I still I think I just blacked out, and I
think we both lucked out and luckily, yeah, our instincts
took over. But I was like shouting, screaming from my
(13:26):
living room, like I'm sure many many fans really wasn't saying.
I think it's one of the most exciting and like
nerve wracking sports moments ever. So I think coming back
to that and like the team blew up and it's
like we lost, I'm like, do people even know that we?
I kept saying that to all my teammates. I'm like,
I don't think people know that we But it was
an amazing game, an amazing tournament. Yeah, they thought that
(13:47):
was the final, and I was like, who am I
to correct them? But I think then it was like
the tides just totally changed. And I think because we
had this ever present equal pay discrimination going on, it
was like we were constantly in the face of discrimination
and you were winning and we were winning. Even if
you lost every game, you should still be paid equally.
(14:08):
But you were winning, wildly successful and winning, and you
could see the crowd start to grow, and our off
field sponsorship was growing. And fast forward to the World
Cup in two thousand fifteen and amazing win and then
really not seeing any kind of significant sort of windfall
financially from that, We're like, well, this can't make sense.
And then you had people chanting at the World Cup,
(14:28):
which was pretty extraordinary. Yeah, and then that sort of
was the culminating moment of the whole world and the
whole soccer world just being like this can't still be happened. Obviously,
we filed the lawsuit prior to going to that World Cup,
which put a lot of emphasis on it. Yeah, I mean,
I think it's just a little bit of a growth
into it, but it was also sort of this natural
progression like, of course, this team is going, you know,
(14:51):
with a bunch of women who are strong willed, and
our only sort of permission structure is each other. And
I think that's another thing that is really unique about
us that the majority of women do not have, is
if you're excellent at what you do, you're usually one
or one of very few, whether that's you're just excelling
in your you know, particular discipline, or if you're in
(15:13):
a c suite, you're probably the only one or you know,
one of two. But for us, there's like twenty three
of us all the time, and so we're all just
constantly looking at each other like this is okay, right,
and we're all like, yeah, I think it's fine. And
so we sort of get that confidence. We sort of
know what our reality is, and we validate that for
each other and we don't gaslight each other. We have
(15:34):
dealt with that with the Federation for years and years
and years, and I think having that sort of support
around us all the time from each other was the
thing that tipped it over the edge, especially when you
haven't always been supported by US soccer itself. And you
mentioned earlier how you took a knee shortly after Colin
Kaepernick in and that was a fairly intense here, you know,
(15:55):
certainly in my life, but also the life of our country.
But to see the hypocrisy of the people and the
institution's condemning Colin and then embracing the Confederate flag being
worn and waved so painfully probably a Trump rallies was
a lot of cognitive dissonance for me, and I can't
imagine how much cognitive dissonance it must have been for
(16:15):
you when it seemed so clear to you why you
were making that choice, and yet, like US soccer was
not terribly supportive of you. That's one way to put it.
I mean I think that they were wholly unsupportive and
through me under the bus completely. That's how it felt
to me. No, I mean so unsupportive. And to bring
up gasline again, that sort of same idea of like,
(16:38):
we're just not even going to listen to what you
have to say. No one feels this way. You're totally
going against the or it's not your play country. Yeah,
it's not my place. Just be proud, just feel grateful
to wear the shirt, which, by the way, I earned
to put the shirt on. You didn't give me the
opportunity to wear the shirt. I earned that myself and
(16:58):
with my teammates, as all of my teammate to do.
And we represent the entire country. We represent Colin Kaepernick,
we represent the Federation, we represent black and brown people,
we represent straight people, we represent middle of America and
to the coast. To me, I don't understand how people
don't see how it's all connected. The way that our
federation treated us, with the dismissiveness and the lack of respect,
(17:22):
rings true with Trump stalking your mom on the stage
at a debate, which rings true with what he said
about immigrants coming across the border, which rings true with
what Greg Abbott is doing in Texas right now, attacking
trans families and trans kids in particular. So to me,
it's like the power structure wants everything to stay the
(17:44):
same forever, and it, you know, just so happens. Almost
everyone was cut out of the original design and the
power structure, and we're just supposed to find our way
in there. I feel like whenever i'm you know, sort
of taking a stand with something, I never think of
who I'm talking to. I'm who I'm talking with, and
it's always way more than that one person. I mean
(18:04):
Trump in particular, when he tweeted at me and tweeted
at the team during the World Cup, it was obviously
a page out of his old playbook, like go attack
a powerful woman, hopefully throw her off her game, distraction.
Heap the whole of the troll world onto me, and
we'll just see how this person falls apart. Because it's difficult,
but I always feel like there's so much more of
(18:26):
us than there is of them fighting for it. So
that's kind of where I find my power and my
strength in that. Even though it is difficult to stare
down your boss, or stare down the President of the
United States. Unfortunate president. Yeah, we're taking a quick break.
Stay with us. I'm an optimist partly because I think
(18:57):
cynicism is the preserve of people who don't want anything
to change, who spent a lot of time, energy, and money,
often convincing those of us who do want to see
change that it's not worth it, it's too hard, it's impossible.
And clearly, Megan, so many people look up to you,
and you inspire so many people, and I just I'm
(19:18):
curious when you were a girl or a young player,
where there players or other women that you really looked
up to who you drew inspiration from their tenacity, their persistence. Now,
until it was a little bit older. To be honest,
looking back, I don't feel like I had a lot
of access to female professional athletes. Really. I grew up
(19:40):
watching Michael Jordan and the Bulls. I mean, I remember
the day the w NBA was created. I was like
a junior in high school and I was like, Oh,
there's finally going to be a women's professional basketball league.
I must have been like ten and that happened. So
it wasn't until I would say a couple of years
before the World Cup, where I started to go to
(20:01):
a couple of games and see that there was women
doing what I loved to do in a stadium and
playing for the national team, and seemingly this was their job.
So I would say, it really wasn't until then that
I feel like I even had the opportunity to have
a real role model or an inspiration that I could
connect with, that you could see yourself in. And so
(20:24):
when soccer players or other athletes who are younger women
starting off in their careers or maybe even thinking about
how to begin their careers come and ask you for advice,
what do you tell them? Oh, gosh, um, it's not fair,
but you're going to have to do more. And I
think just wrapping your head around that really early on
(20:46):
is beneficial. You will have it better than anyone has
ever had it, but certainly there's so much room two
make it even better for the next generation and take
pride in that. I think that's just a reality. I
think be absolutely as fearless as you possibly can. I
always look at it like the world was not designed
(21:07):
for me anyways. So the more time I spend trying
to you know, squeeze myself into this pinhole, the more
miserable I'll become. So build your own, build your own coalitions,
build your own sense of confidence with people who not
just are like minded. I think you need that challenge
and that difference of opinion, but ultimately who do see
(21:29):
the world in a similar fashion and and see you
as whole. Don't ever let anyone tell you who you are,
what you are, the limits of what you can be,
not even yourself. I think, always shoot for absolutely everything
and just see where you end up. And I think
to enjoy it as well. I feel like there is
(21:49):
a lot of hard about it, and there is a
lot of struggle, but there's so much joy as well
as Game has obviously brought me, you know, so much joy,
but there's joy in the struggle too. It's it's joyful
to be able to, you know, barb at the status
quo and poke the bear and to constantly be pushing
forward because it's like, you know, you have the thing
that matters on your side, which is the truth, and
(22:11):
the truth is a really hard thing to go against,
especially when you have a coalition to people or a
team or people in your corner who are willing to
do the same thing and are fighting on that same wavelength.
And I know you and your sister spend time with
kids who are playing soccer, and I wonder what you're
like as a coach and a mentor for kids. Not
(22:32):
a good coach from a great hype person. I'm a
great hype woman. I mean, because I hate to say
this to be its parents, I don't know if you
have aspirations for your kids to become professional athletes, but
like more than likely they're not going to. If they're
going to be a professional athletes, like you're gonna know,
first of all, they're gonna be better than everyone basically
at every level, and like they're going to be exceptional
and you won't really have to do all that much.
(22:54):
But it's the kindness, it's the bravery. You know, it's
all the cliches, but it's like the sportsmanship and the
team work and the conflict resolution. Then then just for
the kids to have fun. I feel like that's a
little bit getting a little bit lost. Youth sports is
just this. I think it's been like monetized quite a bit,
and I think just the fact that kids need to
(23:17):
play and play with each other and do physical activity
and have the conflict resolution and just be creative in
their own bodies is something that I think is really
being missed because reality is that these kids aren't going
to become professional soccer players or you know, athletes, and
they shouldn't feel like a failure because of that. That's
(23:38):
just kind of the reality of it. I think that's
kind of how they're made to feel, is like, well,
if I'm not going to be you know, Megan or Peno,
is it even worth playing soccer? And it's like, well, yeah, yeah,
it absolutely is. The last question I want to ask,
which we're asking everyone in this series, is is there
one statistic or fact or anecdote about women in soccer
(23:59):
or women in sports more broadly in the United States
that either really inspires you or enrages you. But knowing you,
if it enrages you, it also probably inspires you. Oh um.
I think what enrages and inspires me. I don't have
a number or a statistic for it, likely because it
(24:22):
doesn't exist, but the opportunities lost. And I think when
people think about pay equity or think about equality, it's
always like, okay, well I was paid you know seven
dollars and I should have been paid ten, So there's
a three dollar difference, well kind of, but also what
(24:42):
would I have done with those three dollars? And what
would ten dollars have allowed me to do as opposed
to seven? And if we, you know, put women on
TV all the time, do people like women's sports better? Probably?
I don't want to know everything I know a about
Lebron James, but I know a lot because he's on
(25:04):
my TV. So it's like, I think the the just
loss of all of that is most frustrating to me,
because particularly as I've become more successful and being able
to make more money and been able to make decisions
on my own and sort of create a business around
myself where I see myself whole and the other people
(25:24):
around me see me whole, and now we can go
to companies and pitch myself like this and tell them
basically what they need to pay me, or tell them
how they should be looking at me, instead of always
letting other people sort of put the limits on. So
I think we're starting to see that more, and that's
why representation matters. That's why, like you were just saying
(25:46):
with your son, your son doesn't he's not looking at
me and saying like, oh, I like that female gay
soccer player. He just knows I'm a soccer player, and
so the representation for him is not that he's going
to be me per se, but that he knows that
a woman me exists, and then that shapes how he
views himself and how he views other men and how
he views other women. And so for me, it's all
(26:08):
that's taken away from us that we're slowly starting to
claw back. That's the most frustrating because it's like this
thing you can't quantify. It's like, you know, if I
only had five dollars, what would I have done if
I had? And it's just that sort of opportunity loss
that will never know. So you can make up back pay,
or you can have a different salary or whatever, but
(26:29):
for what has already transpired there, there kind of is
no justice for that. So, on a more optimistic note, though,
hopefully the younger players on the national team, the women
who will compete in the next World Cup, and all
of the women who will come after, hopefully I won't
even know what you're talking about again, because hopefully their
(26:52):
reality will be so profoundly different because you and your
teammates thought so hard for that to be true. I mean, honestly,
it already is. I mean, I think to answer your
last question more optimistically or in a more positive way,
like it just feels like it's exploding, Like we had
our experience in two thousand nineteen, and I think that
was a windfall for other sports as well. The w
(27:13):
n b A just raised that is that is real money.
That's incredible. So it's like as we start to clawback
or work towards equality or however you want to say,
it's just exponential growth all the time, all the time
for all the sports, and it's snowballs and we're all
(27:34):
connected and we can really feed off each other. And
it's like the things that the kids are saying now,
they're like upset that they're not chartering everywhere, Like do
you guys know how much private planes costs? Do you
know how much it costs a charter? Like, but they're like, yeah,
we deserve it, And I'm like, who am I to
tell you that you don't. They're already living in a
different reality, and then they're creating that reality and creating
(27:55):
that reality and continuing to push those boundaries, and for
me personally to be able to watch, I know, for
my teammates, for us to be able to in real
time when we're still young and in our career see
that the world has changed for the better. That's the
crowning achievement for sure. And then we just have to
protect that progress, right because there are a lot of
(28:15):
forces trying to tear it down. Lord, thank you so
much for your time. Yeah, it was so nice to
be able to chat with you. Thanks for having me on.
You can find Megan on Twitter at impino and on
Instagram at m Rapino, and you can find her memoir
One Life wherever books are sold. In Fact is brought
(28:40):
to you by I Heart Radio. We are produced by
a mighty group of women and one amazing man, Erica Goodmanson,
Mart Harror, Sarah Horowitz, Jessmin Molly and Justin Wright, with
help from Lindsay Hoffman, Barry Lurie, Joyce Kuban, Julie Supran,
Mike Taylor, and Emily Young. Original music is by just
and Write. If you like this episode of In Fact,
(29:02):
please make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode,
and tell your family and friends to do the same
If you really want to help us out, please leave
a review on Apple Podcasts
Hi, I'm Chelsea Clinton and this season on in fact,
we're celebrating Women's History Month. I'll be talking with trailblazing
women at the top of their fields about their personal journeys,
the progress we've made, and how far we still have
to go. Today, I am thrilled to be talking about
(00:23):
women in sports with Megan Rapino, soccer star, equal rights
and equal pay advocate and the person my children know
is the face of soccer and the lady with the
pink care We're talking shortly after Megan and her teammates
achieved a huge win off the field and one many
people doubted was ever possible, a settlement designed to bring
equal pay to our US national soccer team women players.
(00:46):
It's a fight Megan may not have expected as a
young player, but it's one she's been a vital part
of and when she's often been the face of. Megan
began playing for the national team in two thousand and six,
but she burst onto the public stage and became a
viral sensation. During the eleven World Cup quarterfinal in Germany.
It came I vividly remember watching. In case you weren't watching,
(01:09):
Megan made a stunning forty five yard passed to Abby Wambach,
who headed the ball into the goal, tying the score
with about a minute left in the match. It's been
called one of the greatest goals in women's soccer history,
though the team later lost the final that year. I
guess I didn't bring good luck, even though I was
cheering in the stands that night. It brought home gold
at the Olympics and won the World Cup in twenty nineteen,
(01:32):
where Megan was awarded the Golden Boot for being top
scorer and the Golden Ball for being the best player
in the tournament. Not surprisingly, she was also named FIFA's
Best Woman Player of the Year. And yet, even though
chance of equal pay could be heard throughout the stadium
in France after the team's victory, Megan and her teammates
still had to fight an uphill battle with the US
(01:53):
Soccer Federation for equal pay and equal working conditions with
the men's teams. A year later, in the former head
of US Soccer claimed indisputable science showed that women players
were inferior to men, and the team suffered a major
court loss. But the women in the national team refused
to stop fighting, and in February, four million dollar settlement
(02:14):
was reached right before Megan and I spoke. It awarded
the players twenty two million dollars, with an additional two
million dollars going towards reporting players and their post soccer
careers and charitable efforts. Importantly, it also included a pledge
to equalize pay between the men's and women's national teams
collective bargaining agreement. Megan is a leader and a role
model on the field and off in sports and beyond
(02:37):
for women and girls and men and boys. The impact
of her work and her example will be felt for
years and for generations to come. I asked Megan how
she was feeling about the settlement given the years of blood,
sweat and tears that went into reaching this moment. Oh gosh,
it's really as hard to put into words. You know,
(02:59):
something that you shouldn't have to do, but you know
that you have to do it, and so there's that
battle constantly, and just like you said, Um, I don't
know if there was blood, but certainly a lot of
sweat and tears going into it, and just such an
arduous process and long, oh and so long in the
(03:19):
courts and COVID. I'm just happy that we've come to
this day and that we were able to get to this.
I mean, I think the best part of the settlement
is what it will provide going forward. To be honest,
you know, I was saying yesterday that I can never
get this time back. I can never be undiscriminated against.
I could never unhear the things that they've said to us,
(03:41):
or the way that they've looked at us, or the
way that they've treated us over all of these years.
There's not really um I'm sure I could think of
a dollar amount that's bigger than twenty four that would
that would smooth it over a little bit, but we're
not there. But the justice really comes from the next
generation of players never having to deal with any of
this again. Obviously, that's contingent upon the negotiation of the
(04:04):
collective Bargaining Agreement, which the deadline is I think has
been pushed back to the end of March, but both
sides seem very confident about that and moving forward. I
think it's something that the Federation has now understood it
has to end. I mean, it's just like, what are
we doing. I've been saying this for a long time.
When we win, everyone wins. And we can move on
(04:25):
and work to repair the relationship that has been so
damaged and we can hopefully move forward together. If they win,
we're literally in the exact same spot and everyone loses
them us, fans, the next generation, everything. So it's surreal.
It's hard to even put into words, but I think
it's something that we're all incredibly proud of and something
(04:46):
that we can really genuinely stand behind. And I think
everyone's looking forward to mending that relationship and moving on
to the next step of doing what we want to do,
which is playing soccer and being able to do that
to the fullest of our ability and also grow the
game and grow the business of soccer. Megan, as you say,
while the back pay is hugely important and certainly I
(05:09):
hope validating the fact that the Federation has committed to
equal pay into perpetuity, there's a really really big deal.
It's a really big deal. Yeah, it's a really big deal.
It wasn't a straight line from when you filed your
complaints six years ago, two days ago and you lost
(05:30):
a pretty significant ruling in which you were in the
process of appealing. Was there a moment though, when you
realized you would win, that right would prevail, that equal
pay would happen. I honestly always felt that, probably because
I'm really naive and the lyrical system and I don't
know everything, or you're just an optimist. Yeah, I'm I'm
(05:50):
a forever optimist post I don't know totally the ins
and outs of all the legal system. So even the
ruling in California, it was really disappointing, but I was
just like, oh my god, this is insane. We're obviously
gonna win on the appeal, and I just feel like
I know my experience, and I know the things that
have been said to me. I know the way that
we've been looked at, you know, publicly and privately. I
know that we asked for the exact same pot of
(06:13):
money as the men, and I know that we are
categorically denied that because they didn't think our market value
was there or whatever they said at the time. So
it was just a matter of getting to it and
sticking to it. And I think even just looking back,
just an other sort of movements, and like progress in history,
it's never just like the oppressed person goes to the
(06:34):
oppressors like, hey, just by the way, you're not acting
really in the best way. It'd be great if you
could stop that, and they're like, oh, yeah, perfect, okay,
no problem. Oh my gosh, we had no idea. It's
long and arduous, and it takes not only a changing
of the hearts and minds, which honestly probably comes last,
but and actually like changing the structures in the day
to day systems of how people work and how decisions
(06:55):
are made, and what people are making those decisions, and
who's really at the sort of leadership to table or
in the boardroom. When you were a little kid playing
soccer with your sister and you're like, oh, maybe I
can be a professional soccer player. Did you realize how
much more labor you would have to do than just
play on the field, that I would have to have
like ten other jobs. Yeah? No, No, I didn't realize
(07:18):
that I might have just taken an easier one job
kind of route. And how much would we all have lost? Right,
my kids coodn't have cheered on the lady with the
pink hair, Yeah right, No, I mean I had no idea. Obviously.
It's like I knew that women's and men's sports weren't
on the same playing field because I grew up only
watching men's sports because that's all that was on TV
(07:40):
really until I was probably twelve or thirteen, and certainly
with the ninety nine World Cup that changed everything. But no,
I really had no idea. But when you were little,
you and your sister played on co ed teams and
played on boys teams. So even when you were little,
did you see the boys being treated differently or were
you just so much better than the boys you were
(08:01):
kind of impervious to that. We grew up in a
pretty small town, so I mean, my sister and I
were pretty dominant in a lot of ways, and and definitely,
like you know, up until the gender started to be
sort of split, we were almost better than everyone where
we noticed that. We actually played on a boys team
for a period of time. I think we were like twelve.
(08:22):
The boys on our team didn't really care because obviously
they knew that we were good. The boys on the
other teams, frankly didn't really seem to care. It was
the parents that really cared. And then that sort of
made the boys on the other team be like, yeah,
they shouldn't be out here, probably because we were busting them,
but I think it was the parents frankly, just like
seeing something different and having things be a little different,
(08:44):
I think, and just immediately being resistant to that or
uncurious about that. I mean, you see that even now,
it's always the old people that are getting some of
the old people that are getting in the way. And
was there a moment where you realized that it wasn't
just fun, but it could be your job. I think
it was my freshman year of college was my first
(09:05):
time being brought up to the full national team. So
playing in a couple of games and seeing Okay, they're
doing this for a living, Like Abby's doing this for
a living. She has a nice apartment and like drives
her own car. So it kind of I think being
on the national team at that age, I was kind
of like, Okay, this is like a real thing. It
does mean something to It means a lot to me
(09:27):
actually as a mom of two sons, and from my
five year old, you are what he thinks that when
he thinks of soccer, and so I see how the
visibility of role models matters. And we often in conversations
like this but a lot of time talking about how
much it matters for our daughters. It certainly does but
it matters for our sons too. It matters that our
boys look up to strong, powerful, persistent, kind women. We'll
(09:53):
be right back, stay with us. One of the things
that I think so many people admire, or the opposite admire,
but certainly for my purposes admire about you is that
(10:14):
you have never vowed to the exhortations to just be
an athlete or just focus on dribbling a ball. Is
your activism that isn't only confined to equal pay, but
thankfully is far more capacious, something that you kind of
chose to lean into or even when you were a
(10:35):
kid or a college student, part of who you were,
part of who you've always been. I think a little
bit of both my sister and I both I don't
know why we totally have this, but we definitely have
a bristle towards authority, and particularly authority that we feel
is like using their power in sort of nefarious ways
(10:56):
or taking advantage or manipulating. I think that's part of it.
I think our parents from a young age really instilled
in us, and I think because we excelled at sports
at such a young age, we were kind of the
cool kids in school, and they were like okay, but
to be clear, that doesn't mean anything, and that's not
what makes you cool is the fact that you're popular
(11:17):
in school. What makes you like you need to be
a good person on top of that, and also like
use it for good, Like you guys have a power,
whether you want it or not, and you have a
responsibility to do good with that. So I think that
was sort of stealth instilled in us when we were younger.
And then I think just seeing my own reality, I mean,
being on the women's national team at a young age
(11:40):
and starting to learn about the pay and equity that
every person before me had experience and that I walked
into and started to experience immediately. Being gay as well
gave me like the first foundation of what it meant
to be an ally, because I was asking people of
that before I even had the language of ally or
activists or anything. I was like, I'm pretty sure gay
(12:00):
marriage is the way to go. I'm pretty sure we
should just be able to be who we are, and
we need other people to say that who aren't in
you know, our similar situation. And I think that really
set the foundation going forward for other forms of activism,
whether it's kneeling with Colin and what he was saying
or pay equity. I think it just became very clear
(12:21):
to me that we had some platform with the national team,
and there was something a little bit different about it.
I think being able to represent America all the time
and all of America. Yeah, all of America, whether you're
like it or not, I represent you all over the
country five times a year, and then twice every four
years with the Olympics and the World Cup. On a
(12:42):
global stage, it was kind of like, Okay, we're actually
able to say a lot more and bring a broader
message to a lot of different places in the country
that maybe we don't live in or wouldn't have access to.
And I think I'm just outspoken in general. But I
think kind of like after two thousand eleven, our our
World Cup was in Germany. We ended up losing in
(13:04):
the final, but we came home to like this here
and you had an iconic moment with Abby. Yeah, yeah,
we did, we did. I mean, that's probably one of
the best moments of my career. Two thousand nineteen is
tough to top. At that particular moment was just totally insane.
I still I think I just blacked out, and I
think we both lucked out and luckily, yeah, our instincts
took over. But I was like shouting, screaming from my
(13:26):
living room, like I'm sure many many fans really wasn't saying.
I think it's one of the most exciting and like
nerve wracking sports moments ever. So I think coming back
to that and like the team blew up and it's
like we lost, I'm like, do people even know that we?
I kept saying that to all my teammates. I'm like,
I don't think people know that we But it was
an amazing game, an amazing tournament. Yeah, they thought that
(13:47):
was the final, and I was like, who am I
to correct them? But I think then it was like
the tides just totally changed. And I think because we
had this ever present equal pay discrimination going on, it
was like we were constantly in the face of discrimination
and you were winning and we were winning. Even if
you lost every game, you should still be paid equally.
(14:08):
But you were winning, wildly successful and winning, and you
could see the crowd start to grow, and our off
field sponsorship was growing. And fast forward to the World
Cup in two thousand fifteen and amazing win and then
really not seeing any kind of significant sort of windfall
financially from that, We're like, well, this can't make sense.
And then you had people chanting at the World Cup,
(14:28):
which was pretty extraordinary. Yeah, and then that sort of
was the culminating moment of the whole world and the
whole soccer world just being like this can't still be happened. Obviously,
we filed the lawsuit prior to going to that World Cup,
which put a lot of emphasis on it. Yeah, I mean,
I think it's just a little bit of a growth
into it, but it was also sort of this natural
progression like, of course, this team is going, you know,
(14:51):
with a bunch of women who are strong willed, and
our only sort of permission structure is each other. And
I think that's another thing that is really unique about
us that the majority of women do not have, is
if you're excellent at what you do, you're usually one
or one of very few, whether that's you're just excelling
in your you know, particular discipline, or if you're in
(15:13):
a c suite, you're probably the only one or you know,
one of two. But for us, there's like twenty three
of us all the time, and so we're all just
constantly looking at each other like this is okay, right,
and we're all like, yeah, I think it's fine. And
so we sort of get that confidence. We sort of
know what our reality is, and we validate that for
each other and we don't gaslight each other. We have
(15:34):
dealt with that with the Federation for years and years
and years, and I think having that sort of support
around us all the time from each other was the
thing that tipped it over the edge, especially when you
haven't always been supported by US soccer itself. And you
mentioned earlier how you took a knee shortly after Colin
Kaepernick in and that was a fairly intense here, you know,
(15:55):
certainly in my life, but also the life of our country.
But to see the hypocrisy of the people and the
institution's condemning Colin and then embracing the Confederate flag being
worn and waved so painfully probably a Trump rallies was
a lot of cognitive dissonance for me, and I can't
imagine how much cognitive dissonance it must have been for
(16:15):
you when it seemed so clear to you why you
were making that choice, and yet, like US soccer was
not terribly supportive of you. That's one way to put it.
I mean I think that they were wholly unsupportive and
through me under the bus completely. That's how it felt
to me. No, I mean so unsupportive. And to bring
up gasline again, that sort of same idea of like,
(16:38):
we're just not even going to listen to what you
have to say. No one feels this way. You're totally
going against the or it's not your play country. Yeah,
it's not my place. Just be proud, just feel grateful
to wear the shirt, which, by the way, I earned
to put the shirt on. You didn't give me the
opportunity to wear the shirt. I earned that myself and
(16:58):
with my teammates, as all of my teammate to do.
And we represent the entire country. We represent Colin Kaepernick,
we represent the Federation, we represent black and brown people,
we represent straight people, we represent middle of America and
to the coast. To me, I don't understand how people
don't see how it's all connected. The way that our
federation treated us, with the dismissiveness and the lack of respect,
(17:22):
rings true with Trump stalking your mom on the stage
at a debate, which rings true with what he said
about immigrants coming across the border, which rings true with
what Greg Abbott is doing in Texas right now, attacking
trans families and trans kids in particular. So to me,
it's like the power structure wants everything to stay the
(17:44):
same forever, and it, you know, just so happens. Almost
everyone was cut out of the original design and the
power structure, and we're just supposed to find our way
in there. I feel like whenever i'm you know, sort
of taking a stand with something, I never think of
who I'm talking to. I'm who I'm talking with, and
it's always way more than that one person. I mean
(18:04):
Trump in particular, when he tweeted at me and tweeted
at the team during the World Cup, it was obviously
a page out of his old playbook, like go attack
a powerful woman, hopefully throw her off her game, distraction.
Heap the whole of the troll world onto me, and
we'll just see how this person falls apart. Because it's difficult,
but I always feel like there's so much more of
(18:26):
us than there is of them fighting for it. So
that's kind of where I find my power and my
strength in that. Even though it is difficult to stare
down your boss, or stare down the President of the
United States. Unfortunate president. Yeah, we're taking a quick break.
Stay with us. I'm an optimist partly because I think
(18:57):
cynicism is the preserve of people who don't want anything
to change, who spent a lot of time, energy, and money,
often convincing those of us who do want to see
change that it's not worth it, it's too hard, it's impossible.
And clearly, Megan, so many people look up to you,
and you inspire so many people, and I just I'm
(19:18):
curious when you were a girl or a young player,
where there players or other women that you really looked
up to who you drew inspiration from their tenacity, their persistence. Now,
until it was a little bit older. To be honest,
looking back, I don't feel like I had a lot
of access to female professional athletes. Really. I grew up
(19:40):
watching Michael Jordan and the Bulls. I mean, I remember
the day the w NBA was created. I was like
a junior in high school and I was like, Oh,
there's finally going to be a women's professional basketball league.
I must have been like ten and that happened. So
it wasn't until I would say a couple of years
before the World Cup, where I started to go to
(20:01):
a couple of games and see that there was women
doing what I loved to do in a stadium and
playing for the national team, and seemingly this was their job.
So I would say, it really wasn't until then that
I feel like I even had the opportunity to have
a real role model or an inspiration that I could
connect with, that you could see yourself in. And so
(20:24):
when soccer players or other athletes who are younger women
starting off in their careers or maybe even thinking about
how to begin their careers come and ask you for advice,
what do you tell them? Oh, gosh, um, it's not fair,
but you're going to have to do more. And I
think just wrapping your head around that really early on
(20:46):
is beneficial. You will have it better than anyone has
ever had it, but certainly there's so much room two
make it even better for the next generation and take
pride in that. I think that's just a reality. I
think be absolutely as fearless as you possibly can. I
always look at it like the world was not designed
(21:07):
for me anyways. So the more time I spend trying
to you know, squeeze myself into this pinhole, the more
miserable I'll become. So build your own, build your own coalitions,
build your own sense of confidence with people who not
just are like minded. I think you need that challenge
and that difference of opinion, but ultimately who do see
(21:29):
the world in a similar fashion and and see you
as whole. Don't ever let anyone tell you who you are,
what you are, the limits of what you can be,
not even yourself. I think, always shoot for absolutely everything
and just see where you end up. And I think
to enjoy it as well. I feel like there is
(21:49):
a lot of hard about it, and there is a
lot of struggle, but there's so much joy as well
as Game has obviously brought me, you know, so much joy,
but there's joy in the struggle too. It's it's joyful
to be able to, you know, barb at the status
quo and poke the bear and to constantly be pushing
forward because it's like, you know, you have the thing
that matters on your side, which is the truth, and
(22:11):
the truth is a really hard thing to go against,
especially when you have a coalition to people or a
team or people in your corner who are willing to
do the same thing and are fighting on that same wavelength.
And I know you and your sister spend time with
kids who are playing soccer, and I wonder what you're
like as a coach and a mentor for kids. Not
(22:32):
a good coach from a great hype person. I'm a
great hype woman. I mean, because I hate to say
this to be its parents, I don't know if you
have aspirations for your kids to become professional athletes, but
like more than likely they're not going to. If they're
going to be a professional athletes, like you're gonna know,
first of all, they're gonna be better than everyone basically
at every level, and like they're going to be exceptional
and you won't really have to do all that much.
(22:54):
But it's the kindness, it's the bravery. You know, it's
all the cliches, but it's like the sportsmanship and the
team work and the conflict resolution. Then then just for
the kids to have fun. I feel like that's a
little bit getting a little bit lost. Youth sports is
just this. I think it's been like monetized quite a bit,
and I think just the fact that kids need to
(23:17):
play and play with each other and do physical activity
and have the conflict resolution and just be creative in
their own bodies is something that I think is really
being missed because reality is that these kids aren't going
to become professional soccer players or you know, athletes, and
they shouldn't feel like a failure because of that. That's
(23:38):
just kind of the reality of it. I think that's
kind of how they're made to feel, is like, well,
if I'm not going to be you know, Megan or Peno,
is it even worth playing soccer? And it's like, well, yeah, yeah,
it absolutely is. The last question I want to ask,
which we're asking everyone in this series, is is there
one statistic or fact or anecdote about women in soccer
(23:59):
or women in sports more broadly in the United States
that either really inspires you or enrages you. But knowing you,
if it enrages you, it also probably inspires you. Oh um.
I think what enrages and inspires me. I don't have
a number or a statistic for it, likely because it
(24:22):
doesn't exist, but the opportunities lost. And I think when
people think about pay equity or think about equality, it's
always like, okay, well I was paid you know seven
dollars and I should have been paid ten, So there's
a three dollar difference, well kind of, but also what
(24:42):
would I have done with those three dollars? And what
would ten dollars have allowed me to do as opposed
to seven? And if we, you know, put women on
TV all the time, do people like women's sports better? Probably?
I don't want to know everything I know a about
Lebron James, but I know a lot because he's on
(25:04):
my TV. So it's like, I think the the just
loss of all of that is most frustrating to me,
because particularly as I've become more successful and being able
to make more money and been able to make decisions
on my own and sort of create a business around
myself where I see myself whole and the other people
(25:24):
around me see me whole, and now we can go
to companies and pitch myself like this and tell them
basically what they need to pay me, or tell them
how they should be looking at me, instead of always
letting other people sort of put the limits on. So
I think we're starting to see that more, and that's
why representation matters. That's why, like you were just saying
(25:46):
with your son, your son doesn't he's not looking at
me and saying like, oh, I like that female gay
soccer player. He just knows I'm a soccer player, and
so the representation for him is not that he's going
to be me per se, but that he knows that
a woman me exists, and then that shapes how he
views himself and how he views other men and how
he views other women. And so for me, it's all
(26:08):
that's taken away from us that we're slowly starting to
claw back. That's the most frustrating because it's like this
thing you can't quantify. It's like, you know, if I
only had five dollars, what would I have done if
I had? And it's just that sort of opportunity loss
that will never know. So you can make up back pay,
or you can have a different salary or whatever, but
(26:29):
for what has already transpired there, there kind of is
no justice for that. So, on a more optimistic note, though,
hopefully the younger players on the national team, the women
who will compete in the next World Cup, and all
of the women who will come after, hopefully I won't
even know what you're talking about again, because hopefully their
(26:52):
reality will be so profoundly different because you and your
teammates thought so hard for that to be true. I mean, honestly,
it already is. I mean, I think to answer your
last question more optimistically or in a more positive way,
like it just feels like it's exploding, Like we had
our experience in two thousand nineteen, and I think that
was a windfall for other sports as well. The w
(27:13):
n b A just raised that is that is real money.
That's incredible. So it's like as we start to clawback
or work towards equality or however you want to say,
it's just exponential growth all the time, all the time
for all the sports, and it's snowballs and we're all
(27:34):
connected and we can really feed off each other. And
it's like the things that the kids are saying now,
they're like upset that they're not chartering everywhere, Like do
you guys know how much private planes costs? Do you
know how much it costs a charter? Like, but they're like, yeah,
we deserve it, And I'm like, who am I to
tell you that you don't. They're already living in a
different reality, and then they're creating that reality and creating
(27:55):
that reality and continuing to push those boundaries, and for
me personally to be able to watch, I know, for
my teammates, for us to be able to in real
time when we're still young and in our career see
that the world has changed for the better. That's the
crowning achievement for sure. And then we just have to
protect that progress, right because there are a lot of
(28:15):
forces trying to tear it down. Lord, thank you so
much for your time. Yeah, it was so nice to
be able to chat with you. Thanks for having me on.
You can find Megan on Twitter at impino and on
Instagram at m Rapino, and you can find her memoir
One Life wherever books are sold. In Fact is brought
(28:40):
to you by I Heart Radio. We are produced by
a mighty group of women and one amazing man, Erica Goodmanson,
Mart Harror, Sarah Horowitz, Jessmin Molly and Justin Wright, with
help from Lindsay Hoffman, Barry Lurie, Joyce Kuban, Julie Supran,
Mike Taylor, and Emily Young. Original music is by just
and Write. If you like this episode of In Fact,
(29:02):
please make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode,
and tell your family and friends to do the same
If you really want to help us out, please leave
a review on Apple Podcasts
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