U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe snapped back at Draymond Green on Wednesday after the NBA player suggested that women in sports should stop “complaining” about the gender pay gap.
The Golden State Warriors power forward faced backlash last month over a series of tweets he wrote about sexist pay disparities in sports that suggested female athletes should fix the problem and focus more on growing their sports and revenue.
Green doubled down in a subsequent interview, telling reporters, “I’m really tired of seeing them complain about the lack of pay because they’re doing themselves a disservice by just complaining. They’re not laying out steps that they can take to change that.”
Rapinoe, who had already pushed back firmly on Green’s initial thread, weighed in again Wednesday at a Team USA media event.
“It’s really unfortunate that in the position he’s in, having all the resources that he has and the ability to have a much more educated opinion, that he just hasn’t,” she said. “Really frustrating. Obviously, he just kind of showed his whole ass in not understanding what we talk about the whole time.”
“You don’t think that we’ve asked for more [investment]?” Rapinoe added. “I mean, what are we screaming about nonstop?”
“When we talk about equality in women’s sports, we always talk first about investment, and funding, and resources, and marketing, and branding,” Rapinoe said. “And investing in not just the players but the support staff, and coaching, and media, TV media, print media, all of it.”
She and her U.S. women’s soccer teammates have long been highly visible and active advocates for gender equality in sports around the country and world. Rapinoe and teammate Midge Purce joined President Joe Biden at the White House last month to advocate for the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act and call for more investment in women’s sports. And Rapinoe testified before the House Oversight Committee earlier that day on gender pay disparities.
Rapinoe and more than 25 of her USWNT teammates sued the U.S. Soccer Federation in 2017 over the massive pay disparity between them and their less-successful male counterparts.