The US Women’s National Soccer Team has won four World Cups, four Olympic gold medals, and last week, in a stunning 5-0 shutout against Iceland, won the 2022 SheBelieves Cup. Last week the team also achieved a victory, not in a soccer match, but for equality in pay. 

The Optimist Daily started covering this story in 2020, when the team reached an agreement to proceed with their lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation for pay and compensation equal to that of their male counterparts. Last Tuesday, the team finally won their suit. 

This is believed to be the first time that female athletes have sued their employers for unfair treatment based on gender and won. 

The team has won its increase in pay to equal that of their male counterparts, and it has also won more fair working conditions and back pay of what they should’ve been making in the amount of $24 million. 

They have more than earned these awards as the team has afforded significant gains to the US Soccer Federation in the past. In 2019, the Women’s World Cup was the most-watched English language soccer match, for men or women, in US history, and the team won that game too. This flies in the face of the argument sometimes made that women’s sports aren’t compensated in the same way as men’s because they don’t attract as much attention or raise as much money. 

In 2016, the US Women’s National Soccer Team raised $20 million more in revenue than the men’s team, opened a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission the next year, and began down this road ending in last Tuesday’s success.