Female athletes have always faced discrimination, and they aren’t getting paid a high enough salary for what they do on the field and or court. Women have a huge cut in their salary compared to male athletes. Even for playing the same sport, men still get thousands and thousands of dollars more than women. These athletes may make money for their popularity, but men’s sports always seem to get more attention.

The pay gap is extraordinarily unbalanced. According to CBS, National Basketball Association players average about $5.3 million a year. And that’s just for players that you will never hear of. In contrast, the top dogs of the Women’s National Basketball Association earn an average of $130,000 a year. Even though these women are the top in the league, and they are all over social media and TV, they still aren’t getting paid a great deal for what they are doing.

This has always been a huge problem, but recently, according to NPR, the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team has lifted up the difference in their paycheck from the men’s team. But since that happened last year, no other athletes have followed in their footsteps. The U.S. women’s soccer team shows that it’s possible to get equal pay. It’s just surprising no other changes have been made following this huge situation.

“Equal play, equal pay” is a common phrase for the topic. This means that if you get an equal amount of playing time, you should get an equal amount of money, and gender shouldn’t decide how much money you have. Rather, it should be determined by your job, what you do for the world, and how others look up to you.