Millions of people watched the Women’s World Cup this past Sunday and witnessed a historical victory. When the Soccer World Cup is mentioned, most think of the men’s World Cup, however the United States Women’s National Team has made great strides in the past years, almost beating Japan in the 2011 World Cup finals. This past Sunday, Japan and the U.S. went to battle again and within the first 15 minutes several goals were scored by the U.S. Three of these goals were scored by midfielder Carli Lloyd, gaining the fastest hat trick in World Cup history. (A hat trick by the way is when a single player scores 3 goals in one game.) The final score of the game was 5-2 with the U.S. taking home the gold.

What is most important about this major win for the USWNT is the desire for gender equality in the soccer world. For example, the Women’s Soccer teams were not allowed to play on real grass and instead were forced to play on turf which makes a great difference in the player’s ability. This contrasts with the grass that the Men’s soccer teams played on. Another example of the differences in equality lies with how the women’s soccer teams were treated in their hotels. According to the L.A. Times, “FIFA forced as many as four women's teams to share the same hotel and training facilities while competing against one another in Canada. Most of the men's teams didn't even share the same city in Brazil.” There is also a discrepancy amongst the two teams in accordance to the prize money given to the Men’s and Women’s soccer players. As a response to this question posed to FIFA, Secretary General Jerome Valcke said, "That's not even a question I will answer because it is nonsense. We played [the] 30th World Cup in 2014 and we are playing the seventh Women's World Cup.... We are still another 23 World Cups before potentially women should receive the same amount as men." This response shows the ignorance of the heads of FIFA in concern to the equality of women. This is an important issue and the media, though they give great exposure to the women’s victory, should focus more on the inequality between the men’s and women’s soccer teams.

Source via Los Angeles Times