The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Promotes Its Equal Pay Campaign With T-shirts

Soccer and fashion collided in a big way over the weekend, as members of the U.S. Women’s National Team expressed their fight for equal treatment through their wardrobe, by wearing #EqualPlayEqualPay T-shirts in front of cameras before playing a match against South Africa in Chicago. While on the field, the players also wore temporary tattoos with the same I-can’t-believe-we’re-still-talking-about-this message.

It was the team’s way of creatively keeping visible their fight for U.S. Soccer — which announced its Olympics team on Tuesday — to offer them financial compensation, playing conditions, and travel accommodations that equal those of the male players.

“We would prefer not to have to deal with this,” midfielder Megan Rapinoe told the New York Times about kicking the fight up a notch just before the team’s Aug. 3 Olympic opener. “But we’re not going to shy away from it either.”

The fashion-based protest, which also includes use of the #EqualPlayEqualPay hashtag on social media platforms, is an escalation of the fight made public when the federation sued the union representing the team to enforce its collective bargaining agreement. Five prominent players filed a complaint in March on behalf of the team with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, accusing U.S. Soccer of wage discrimination.

“We’ve had enough,” USWNT star Megan Rapinoe told the New York Times. “Our hand has been forced.”

To clarify, explained Think Progress, the USWNT “is not fighting for NWSL players to be paid the same as those in MLS, the men’s pro soccer league here in the States. The NWSL is only four years old and plays an abbreviated season. Currently, the minimum salary for NWSL players who are not on the national team is $7,200, while the max is $39,700.”

But the inequality goes beyond salary, according to Elle, which noted, “When the U.S. Men’s National Team plays in Los Angeles, they fly business class. When they land, they head to the Langham, a luxury hotel in Pasadena, where the cheapest room was recently priced at $249 and suites can cost more than $1,000. When the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team plays in Los Angeles, they fly coach. Upon landing, they head to the Belamar in Manhattan Beach, where the swankiest room costs about as much as the cheapest room at the Langham.” The story adds that, while the men have never won a World Cup, the women are the reigning champs. Good luck explaining that one to your soccer-playing daughters.

So far, the T-shirt and tattoo campaign is being well received by soccer fans. The National Women’s Law Center tweeted that the “new look is on point,” while another supporter noted, “On a more light-hearted note … I really want one of those #equalplayequalpay shirts. Like I’m being 1,000% serious. I need one. Now.”

Which brings us to the next point: Will the shirts sell? They’re available for just $20 a pop at the official sales site (as part of the publicity campaign, which goes only until July 22). And if similar clothing-based fundraisers of the recent past are any indication — from the Trump camp’s “Make America Great Again” $25 cap to the 2008 Obama campaign’s online apparel shop (which is still going strong), including $80 Isaac Mizrahi–designed “Hope” tote bags — it should do well as a way to spread free marketing for a very good, if not exasperating, cause.

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