US Girls for Gold
Here at BRICC, we love to see women disrupting industries and fighting against social norms and civil disparities. Why? Not all female trailblazers get the recognition they deserve for using their platform to voice out against wrongs and ultimately catalyze change. Especially female athletes.
Earlier this afternoon the US Women’s Soccer team won the coveted World Cup. What caught our eye about their triumphant tournament run was the focus on women’s rights in sports. The team has been outspoken and pushed back to get the rights they deserve. Today, we want to recognize another US athlete who was a change catalyst as well.
Image Courtesy of NBC News
Hockey has historically been a male dominated sport with the NHL and Olympics both drawing huge US fanbases supporting their teams on ice. However, according to reigning Team USA Winter Olympic gold medalist and National Women’s Hockey League star Meghan Duggan, women’s hockey and women’s sports coverage in general is extremely cyclical, peaking only during Olympic competition.
Along with equitable pay and support for women athletes, sports coverage is a top issue limiting growth. Women in sports receive less than 4 percent of televised sports coverage, and many professional women athletes want to change that.
In the final gold medal game at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, around 3 million people tuned in to watch the US take home the prize. These types of numbers are the empirical evidence that athletes are using to show that women sports can sell the big-ticket too.
Recognizing disparities and desiring to shift the culture, and actually executing are two very different things. Duggan made sure that she left her stamp by standing with her team and threatening to boycott the 2017 ICHF World Championships to protest stalled negotiations with USA Hockey over wages and support. The headline gained national news and support flowed in according to Duggan. The boycott resulted in a new agreement negotiated days before the championship game.
2018 proved to be a busy year for Duggan as she also wed her wife in late September. Where she met her won’t surprise you. Although she wasn’t on the team that the US beat for gold last year, Gillian Apps was a member of the Canadian National Women’s hockey team for years, facing off against her now-wife in two Olympic Winter Games, both in 2010 and 2014. Five world championships and two Olympic Games later, the two are ready to start their lives together off the ice.
Women’s sports have been around for many years, however they are just now in the infancy of gaining their equity. And it’s sad to say, the same trend is emerging in the 1.1 billion dollar eSports industry. We applaud all change agents like Meghan Duggan and others, who do not only excel in a sport once thought “too tough for girls”, but also use their platform as one of the best in the game to draw attention to the ever-present civic issues in sports today.
We know there are women all over the country blazing their own trail everyday. At BRICC we love to hear your stories, because they are OUR stories. Women, give us an opportunity to hear your experiences and insights.
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The vision of BRICC Foundry is to cultivate minority women through the pursuit of knowledge, mentorship & professional development to inspire women to pursue their career & life goals in spite of obstacles in their present state. Registered 501c(3), tax-exempt organization.