It's no doubt that the United States, when it comes to sports, excels in many areas - from aquatics to baseball, gymnastics to soccer. In the 2012 Olympics alone, the U.S won 46 gold medals, 28 silver, and 29 bronze. This ranked the country in first place, with the most gold medals.
But while sports and physical activities are highly praised and regarded in the States, there is still a unfair advantage to male athletes. Not only are the sole major league sports- where atheletes make millions of dollars- male leagues, but women in the system often receive the short end of the stick.
One of the most visible examples of this is women's soccer.
Across the nation, men, women, and children often gather in bars and public places to watch the highly-regarded Men's National Team and many other male-based soccer teams play.
The Women's National Team, in comparison to their male counterparts, reaches further and accomplishes more:
The women have won the world cup three times- 1991, 1999, and 2015, earning them three stars for the national jersey.
Every time the men's team has reached the finals of the FIFA World Cup, they have only been awarded third place.
In 1996, women's football was officially added to the Olympic games. Since then, the women's national team has won the gold medal at every Olympic games, except for in 2000, in Australia, but still won silver. If they were to win gold this year at Brazil, the will be the first country in both men's and women's soccer to win gold at both the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics.
The men have gotten nowhere near such accomplishments. From 1912 to 1920, they did not qualify for the games, as well as 1960 to 1968, and 1976. Along with a withdrawal in 1980, the team lost every single game from 1924 to 1956, never making it past round one except for 1928 (when they were immediately eliminated in the next round). A gold medal has never been awarded to the team, but they did win silver in the 1904 St. Louis games.
In FIFA rankings, the Women's team is currently at number one, and has never dropped below number two. On the other hand, the men are currently at number 24, their highest being number nine and lowest 84.
One would think after seeing these statistics that the women's team makes by far more money than the men's. This is, in fact, far from the truth. 
As seen in this chart provided by Sports Illustrated, the players of the women's team make 61 thousand dollars less than the men for just making the roster, and the team as a whole receives 2,465,500 dollars less for even qualifying. The women receive nothing for reaching the round of 16 and the quarterfinals, while the men make millions. Finally, if the U.S men's team were to win the World Cup, they would make 9.1 million, 7.2 million more than the 1.8 million that the women made.
In short, the athletes of the U.S Soccer Women's National team excels in many more ways than their opposites- but are not compensated for it. Despite several star players speaking out about this- including Hope Solo and Carli Lloyd- there has been no move to improve. Hopefully soon the United States Federation of Soccer will listen to the fans' complaints and those of their players.
