Name: Athletes, Achievement & Fight for Equal Pay
Uploaded: 2019-12-11
Duration: 15 min 45 s
Description: We’ve heard from star athletes from team sports about the fight for equal pay. But in the case of the individual athlete, the fight is on another level– as it impacts branding, representation and their own identity.

This year has been such an amazing year for women's sports and the two of you have played a big role in that. So thank you so much for being here. Alysia we just saw a clip from a video op ad that you did with the New York Times. This was in May, Running on an extremely high level. So, clearly that's something you struggled with for years privately. Why did you decide that it was time to come forward? Well, ultimately, you know, we keep talking about the NDA and what was technically broke within terms of the contract and what you're not supposed to say what is in it or Omitted it within the contract and in this case, the omission of any sort of protections within maternity leave or pregnancy did not exist for women athletes. And I ultimately decided to speak up, because there's no examples for women before me. And I needed to be the example for women after me I think one thing that we didn't see on that clip that was really amazing to me is that is wasn't just about your pregnancy. It was also essentially you weren't going to be paid until you were to running again, so Alicia is well known as the pregnant runner. You raced while you were eight months pregnant. And then you came back six months postpartum, 10 months postpartum. You won championships. But you were you had a very young child, you were still breastfeeding. You actually had had a situation where your abdominal muscles had split in your pregnancy and you are running with them taped together. Can you tell us what that was like? [ LAUGH ] A little hardcore. To me it was a space of silence to be completely honest because I was the only one that was by myself and I'm in this Old Boys Club where if we have any, women's rights that we are fighting for nobody is at the head of the table that's fighting with us or for us. And, ultimately, you know, when you see your contract laying in front of you, that's, that's part of your livelihood. It's who's going to be, I'm the one that's going to be feeding my family and the family that I've started and all of a sudden. Now that I've become that pregnant runner, you find out that actually this livelihood that you thought you were gonna be able to sustain is not gonna be possible just because you decided that you also wanted to be a mom and have a career. And so when [ LAUGH ] we talk about what was that like? It was a space of loneliness, it was space of darkness, and just trying to express Hey, here's what we would actually need. Here's what would be helpful. Luckily, I did have great PTs and, physical therapists that were women that were behind me saying, you know what, the worst thing that you could do is rush this, I would just take your natural course of action, and I gave myself the peace of mind to just take my natural course of action. The only part that wasn't completely natural was taping my abs together and I got to be completely honest relatively lucky that I was able to win Nationals 6 months postpartum and get my first quarter payback and this is actually after I left Nike and went with A6 and it was the same way. You know, just a bunch of men at the side of the table that not understanding what. Women face and you know, coming back into that winning, breaking an American record winning a gold medal. You know winning another Championship at 10 months postpartum with my daughter, you know on by my side. asking to nurse like right after winning a championship was something that wasn't an example for anybody because we silenced and we thrown all of our other women away. So. Yes, unreal, so Jessy, I wanna talk about surfing also, and the big news this year in surfing is the surf league has Achieved equal pay. And I wanna make sure I'm getting this right. It's the first US- based global sports league to provide equal pay. Yes. For men and women. Yes. [ APPLAUSE ] Pretty cool. Yeah, it's a huge deal. Obviously many sports are struggling to get there. And I wanna talk about how you did it. But I also wanna talk a little bit first about your experiences as a pro surfer. You, I believe got your first contract at 15? Yes .>> You went on to be number four in the world? Before retiring. And I'm curious about what experiences you had as a woman surfing that informed what you want to do now that you are running the actual league. For sure. So I was pro surfer for a long time. It sarted when I was really young. You know a few things very young to be getting paid to serve and I always had great sponsors and I was always super competitive and you know, like competitive athletes we love to win, and it's a very interesting kind of space for you and your winning prize money And that prize money is not the same as the man that standing next to you on the podium. I only have won one championship tour event in Mali. That's our version of the top tier of the sport. And I won $ 10, 000, I won a tenth of what the men were making. A tenth? A tenth, and it's We saying to young kids, 15 year olds who are signing their contracts and, even people who'd come before me. I was talking to one of our world champions in the 90s from 1990 and she said, It feels like the women belong, it's a big thing for you to feel valued like that. Really worked hard to stabilize the platform and to elevate us as athletes. So we've had this multi strategy which culminated with more events, more prize money. And then last year, we just kind of felt like it was the right time and also the right thing to do. There's so many women in the world now, that a Fighting for those things and we really wanted to be like a leader in the space and I mean for me as an ex pro surfer to be here and be telling you that surfing of all the sports is a leader in gender equality is like I would have laughed at you if you told me it was like when I was a young kid. Yeah .>> I have another question for Lisa but I'm going to come to you guys for questions in a minute. So start thinking about whether you have them for our athletes. You came forward, we saw a number of other female runners speaking out. Some women saying they'd experienced what you'd experienced. And then very recently, Mary Cain coming forward to talk about, essentially sort of psychological abuse that she she'd suffered. While training with Nike and while training with a prominent coach then just this week I don't know if you guys saw this bunch of Nike employees were marching to protest how the companies treated women. So you unleashed something. What do you think we're going to see like, is this a see change for women? Yes. Absolutely. I think. Most of us, I feel like, in here, [ LAUGH ] are women. We enact change. This is why we need seats at the table because when we have our voices heard, we ultimately band together and we make those voices amplified and louder. And we allow for people to recognize why this is a problem. And I think one of the greatest things is what I'd seen yesterday was The employees at Nike, they have their paychecks on the line. This is their job. This is what exactly what I was fighting for, our livelihood and we have many women athletes that are still sponsored by Nike that ultimately people are wondering why they're not saying anything. And I'm like, they sign these contracts that could be up to four years long. Some of them six and if they say anything now all of a sudden, they're worried about If they are gonna have an opportunity earning a living and fighting for their dreams. And so, yes, the sea of change is exactly what we're looking for, it's exactly why we need to speak up, why we need to band together, because ultimately if my voice was just one that was out there by itself, I ultimately would under being To be honest, dead in the water alone. Okay, let's see if we have any questions out there. Okay, I see a yellow paddle over here. If you could introduce yourself also. Sure. Claire [ UNKNOWN ] Hi Alicia. Hey, go Bears. Yeah, go Stanford, former competitor [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] [ LAUGH ] [ INAUDIBLE ] I have had many laps together on the truck. But a question to the point you just made which is that change really started when you spoke up and then others felt more comfortable coming to the table. And so, now there are other athlits. Yeah. Speaking out But you made a great statement saying when it comes to the seats at the table, it's largely men. And so at a corporate level, with a bunch of corporate badass ladies here in the In the room. What do you think we can be doing to address some of the issues in tract and field, in surfing, and all of the sports from the business side? Is that what really makes a difference to them at the end of the day? Yeah, I think, what we're talking about is largely systemic. It's not just within sport. I think when we look at ourselves as leaders, we, when we have an opportunity to be in the room, and we're fighting for a seat at the table to make a seat for ourselves, you know, you might see a seat off to the side and just slowly start inching your way in there and I think don't be afraid. To say you know, when you see a space where someone's putting out some marketing campaign that seems very very male dominated to have an opportunity to say you know, how do you thought about this sort of marketing strategy, had you thought about her worth in this marketing strategy I think that's a lot of what we see with missing. You know you're watching all these marketing campaigns in particular in sports and you're seeing them relate to. Men and we have all these amazing women who were not seeing the relatability and how it pertains to you because ultimately, like you've talked about, our stories are devalued. They're paying us a 10th of what they're paying the men because we don't see any value of that the people that care about sports are men. And that's clearly not the fact obviously, then there wouldn't be any women within sports. So I think from on a corporate level When you guys have these discussions about, influencers or from a marketing perspective, and you have a space of insertion, I really would try to tell the stories for women as best as possible. And I know it's difficult. I've been there obviously, but don't be afraid to and I think one of the things that we saw happen at Nike two years ago Was when one woman was afraid to speak up but had a few conversations around the lunch table with other women. Instead they put together an anonymous packet that express their concerns and their feelings then they ultimately [ UNKNOWN ] on the desk of the CEO. I think Finding these ways to band together, and unify cuz I understand the fear of losing a paycheck and understand the fear of not having an opportunity to climb the ladder. But if we never ever speak up, we're never ever gonna be able to climb those ladders anywhere. Do we have other questions? Now Okay, I have another one. Wait. Sorry I missed that. There's a hand over here. And the paddle is coming. Hi there. This is a slightly different topic, but it's certainly been a story also in sports in a very much involved sponsorships and I'm curious about How the influence of global culture is also impacting how you all think about your work specifically. And so for example, China and the NBA and how that refracted across so many sports figures individually but also the league, and then many brands and so I'm curious We're in Tokyo 2020. Last week we just qualified the first ever American women's surfing team. For us to be on that kind of, yeah it's sick. [ LAUGH ] [ APPLAUSE ] Yeah and it's amazing, it's an amazing moment for our sport, to be on that global scale and have so many All the young women in different places in the world be able to see surfing as a real sport. We're actually starting the year next year in the women's tour in China. We have our first, the first big international events going to be in China. So is that a new market for you? We only have one minute left, and I just wanna end by acknowledging something that happened for Alicia in September, is that right? At the IAAF World Athletic Championships. Yes, mm- hm. She was awarded two bronze medals for races that she won in 2011 and 2013. Yeah, thank you. > [ APPLAUSE ] [ UNKNOWN ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Athletes, Achievement & Fight for Equal Pay

Sports

We’ve heard from star athletes from team sports about the fight for equal pay. But in the case of the individual athlete, the fight is on another level– as it impacts branding, representation and their own identity.