Watch Notre Dame Coach Muffet McGraw Speak Out for Gender Equality
Notre Dame's head women's basketball coach, Muffet McGraw, has a lot to celebrate these days. On Friday, her team bested the University of Connecticut to advance to an NCAA title game after winning the national title last year. McGraw celebrated the Fighting Irish's win last night with an appropriate jig on the court, but she's also had some less celebratory matters on her mind lately. On Thursday night, when a reporter asked her about her reported decision to never again hire a male coach on her staff, she launched into a very strong monologue on the topic.
"Did you know that the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced in 1967, and it still hasn't passed?" she said, to start. "We need 38 states to agree that discrimination on the basis of sex is unconstitutional. We've had a record number of women running for office and winning. And still, we have 23 percent of the House and 25 percent of the Senate."
She continued with her incredibly well backed-up answer: "I'm getting tired of the novelty of the first female governor of this state, the first female African American mayor of this city. When is it gonna become the norm, instead of the exception? How are these young women looking up and seeing someone that looks like them preparing them for the future? We don't have enough female role models, we don't have enough visible women leaders, we don't have enough women in power. Girls are socialized to know that when they come out, gender roles are already set. Men run the world. Men have the power. Men make the decisions; it's always the men that is the stronger one. When these girls are coming out, who are they looking up to to tell them that that's not the way it has to be. We are better to do that than in sports. All these millions of girls across the country...Right now, less than five percent of women are CEOs of fortune 500 companies. So yes, when you look at men's basketball, and 99 percent of jobs go to men, why shouldn't 99 percent of jobs in women's basketball go to women? Maybe it's because we only have 10 percent women athletic directors in Division One. People hire people who look like them, and that's the problem."
McGraw's athletes were immediately on board when the video went live and tweeted out their support:
But McGraw's feelings on the moment might just be summed up with this action:
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