The 2016 NCAA Women’s College Cup kicked off this past weekend. Penn State, the 2015 champion, kicked off the opening round by steamrolling their opponent, Bucknell, 6-0. As always, though, it is a wide open field, with strong teams across different conferences and a few players from the Olympics looking to make a big impact.
If Hillary Clinton was elected president, we all know she would have helped America move closer to women’s rights and equality. But Donald Trump won the election instead. So, what does this mean for women’s soccer? Will Trump continue to insult and treat women poorly? Will his presidency create a bigger gap between the two genders? Will we move further away from equal pay? It hasn’t even been 48 hours and we already have so many questions…
The Harvard men's soccer team has been suspended for the rest of the season after the Harvard Crimson reported that in 2012, team members created a "scouting report" on the physical attractiveness of the incoming freshman class of the women's team, and it came to light that the practice continued past 2012.
Female athletes have to deal with the physical side of becoming a parent. Male athletes do not have to worry or stress about their bodies changing over time, they are able to fully focus on their careers. Men don’t breastfeed, these female soccer players make a living with their bodies, which makes it even more impressive for them to return to the game they love after giving birth.
Christie Rampone, Amy Rodriguez and Shannon Boxx were able to find a balance between World Cups and motherhood. “If you love what you do, you’ll stay true.”
Research from Wake Forest University in 2011 showed that female soccer players are half as likely as men to flop and fake an injury during a match, and this video featuring Barcelona’s Barbara Latorre demonstrates just that.
The Harvard men’s soccer team has been suspended for the remainder of the season by the University following an investigation over an appalling "scouting report" that ranked women’s team players.
A quick refresher: USWNT star Megan Rapinoe chose to join other athletes in kneeling during "The Star-Spangled Banner". We first saw Rapinoe participate in the silent protest on September 15, 2016, and that was not the last of it. Various athletes are refusing to stand during the anthem to draw attention to racial injustice in this country.
Is there a diversity problem in women’s soccer? As other sports have made strides to include players of all ethnicities, most youth, college and professional women’s soccer teams in the USA are still mainly comprised of white players.
This lack of diversity has led organizations to try and overcome the problem, and over the past few years, strides have been made to make the sport more inclusive, but it just doesn’t seem to have come far enough.
Barriers To Diversity
USWNT debutants are scoring so fast we can't even keep up.
Remember on Wednesday when Lynn Williams scored 49 seconds into her debut broke the USWNT record for fastest debut goal? How long ago that seems.
Sunday, playing Switzerland for the second time in a week, the USWNT handed a debut to 24-year-old Kealia Ohai, who promptly broke Williams' record, scoring 48 seconds into her USWNT career.
The USWNT beat Switzerland, who will be happy to be rid of the Yanks for a while, 5-1.