Today is International Women’s Day 2022 and we are celebrating the achievements of women who are doing great things to create a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination. One that's diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together they are showing that we can forge women's equality and that collectively we can all #BreakTheBias.
I’ve chosen to focus my blog’s today on women who are really making changes in the following areas:
Women and Sport
Women’s Empowerment &
Women Forging Change
Some of these amazing women that are not afraid to stand up and make their message heard fall into more than one of these categories.
Women and Sport
The first group of people I want to mention in this category is the USWNT (United States Women’s National Team) a group of 28 female players headed up by Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe and Christen Press all who campaigned tirelessly for equal pay. On February 22nd 2022 it was announced that they had reached an agreement on their long standing equal pay claims that hard started back in March 2019.
The USWNT are one of the most decorated international female teams of all time with a record breaking four World Cup wins in 1991, 1995, 2015 and 2019 and are also four-time Olympic Gold Medal winners from 1996, 2004, 2008 and 2012.
Compared to the men’s team who have placed third once at the ten World Cup’s they have qualified for and have won two Olympic Gold Medals.
It’s great to see that the USWNT of today have campaigned tirelessly for gender equality and pay not only for themselves but for the future generations.
The three main USWNT players have also made some powerful equality statements.
Alex Morgan
“My goal is to show girls that I'm fighting so they don't have to, so they don't have to fight the same battles, so they don't have to fight for wage equality or whatever it may be.”
“Whenever people say 'women's soccer,' I want to correct them to say 'soccer.' Every girl has had their sport diminished because they're girls.”
“I want to know I made women’s soccer better than it was when I came into it.”
“I don’t think the entire world respects women in sport. But if FIFA start respecting the women’s game more, others will follow.”
To check out more of her inspirational and equality quotes head to:
She also came to play in the UK in 2020 for Spurs Women’s Team and despite only playing five games left a more lasting legacy as she championed equality for the team by immediately requesting a meeting with the Spurs Chairman, which resulted in the Spurs Women’s team training at Tottenham’s new top of the line training facility!
You can read more about the story here:
Alex Morgan was also so determined to appear at the Olympics for the USWNT just three months after giving birth to her daughter that she trained at pretty much her usual level until being seven months pregnant! If that’s not an example of female empowerment I don’t know what is!
Check out “Alex Morgan’s Intense Pregnancy Workout Shows Why She Was Ready for the Olympics 3 Months After Giving Birth”
Christen Press
Christen has also been a great role model for women and female athletes all over the world.
Check out some of her most famous quotes:
“Equality is not just a word you can say. I think it’s simple from our perspective. We want to be paid equally and that just means that when we show up to a game that we get compensated the same way that a man would for showing up for the same game.”
“It’s important for girls to feel strong and powerful even when they’re playing sports.”
“Serena Williams is my sports idol!”
Megan Rapinoe
Megan has also been a great role model for gay women and female athletes everywhere and has been fighting for equality for a long time.
She has been quoted as saying:
“You are not lesser just because you are a girl.”
“The more I’ve been able to learn about gay rights and equal pay and gender equity and racial inequality, the more that it all intersects. You can’t really pick it apart. It’s all intertwined.”
“Honestly, I feel like we are a walking protest. The fact that we’re women professional athletes says that in and of itself. We’ve been feeling the inequality; we’ve been struggling with pay equality or whatever it is, or sexism in sports.”
“Being female and an advocate for equal opportunities, I want to see an equal representation in people applying for the head coach job for the women’s team.”
“As I’ve grown older I’ve really got to understand how powerful one voice can be, my voice can be, or the team’s voice can be. So to hold that back or not to use that just seems selfish in a way.”
Check out some of her other famous equality and inspirational quotes here:
Serena Williiams
The next great female athlete who I want to mention is my favourite tennis player Serena Williams.
A player with the most Grand Slam wins (23) in the Open Era. The most wins out of the male and female players combined with Rafa Nadal the closest male winning 21.
She is considered to be the greatest female tennis player of all time due to her amazing achievements on the court.
It's also great to see two female players making up the Top 3 highest earning tennis players of 2021 with Naomi Osaka taking up second place and Serena coming in third.
Serena has a career spanning twenty five years and during that time she has always been an inspiration for women on and off court whether she’s speaking out about inclusion and diversity, body positivity, doing the right thing or just empowering women in general.
Over the years she’s been quoted as saying:
“As a Black tennis player, I looked different. I sounded different. I dressed differently. I served differently. But when I stepped onto the court, I could compete with anyone.”
“The success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up. Make sure you’re very courageous: be strong, be extremely kind, and above all be humble.”
“There weren’t a lot of role models for me to look up to [in the sport] and say, ‘Wow, I want to look like this!’. I kind of had to be that role and be that person... Venus and I started out being successful, continued to be successful, and we were also unapologetically ourselves. We were not afraid to wear braids. We weren’t afraid to be Black in tennis. And that was different.”
To check out her Top 15 quotes head to:
She also wrote an open letter back in 2016 about gender equality, empowerment and resilience and has always been a campaigner of this, a great example of #BreakTheBias:
Serena has long rallied for equality in gender pay in the sports world, but she told CBS News in an interview that addressing inequalities "takes time."
"You just can't expect things to change overnight," the 23-time Grand Slam champion said. Williams, 40, pointed out that those attitudes toward it are changing, especially when it comes to equal pay.
"I like that people are starting to recognize that women do deserve equal pay and they deserve the same that a male gets," she said.
Check out this recent interview she gave on February 11th 2022 about Sports Gender Inequality:
Something else that makes Serena Williams unique and a great example of both empowering women and forging change is that in 2017 she won her record breaking 23rd Grand Slam title in Melbourne at the Australian Open while eight weeks pregnant! She also didn’t drop a set during the competition!
One guy actually tweeted "Serena Williams won a grand slam while she was pregnant so every man should probably shut up about everything forever." – which I found both amazing and hilarious!!
Check out BBC News’ article “Serena Williams – How Did She Compete While Pregnant?”
Serena has also become quite the business woman off court too with not only her own jewellery line but more importantly in 2014 she launched her Serena Ventures company whose mission is committed to funding women and black-owned businesses.
To learn more about the businesses she’s invested in and how she’s amassed her fortune check out:
More recently she launched her venture capital fund through Serena Ventures and raised $111 million as she had attended an even where one of the speakers Ms. Seidman-Becker said:
“less than 2 percent of venture money went to women.” Serena then said “I go up to her afterward and asked, ‘Tell me about this 2 percent — I know maybe you misspoke?" and she says, “No, it’s true.”
“And I literally couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that 98 percent of all of this money we’re talking about — billions of dollars — goes to one type of individual.”
To learn more about her new venture capital fund head to:
Andy Murray who has been one of Serena's doubles partner for many tennis matches, has always championed equality in sports and always correct interviewers and speaks out. Here he is correcting a reporter at Wimbledon in 2017 to say "Male" player when the reporter makes reference to an American player being the first player to advance to a semi-final since 2009!
Serena between 2009 & 2017 had actually achieved the following:
Australian Open - 4 Wins, 1 Final
French Open - 2 Wins, 1 Final
Wimbledon - 5 Wins
US Open - 3 Wins, 1 Final, 2 Semi Finals
Which isn't quite the same as what the reporter was implying!! Great to see someone like Andy speaking out and showing his support.
I think both the USWNT including Alex Morgan, Christen Press and Megan Rapinoe along with Serena Williams both belong in the three categories of Women and Sport, Women’s Empowerment and Women Forging Change and who are fighting constantly to #BreakTheBias.
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