U.S. Women’s National Team soccer star Megan Rapinoe is blasting NBA player Draymond Green’s criticism of the equal pay movement for women in sports, saying his comments are “really unfortunate.”
During a recent Zoom call about the summer Olympics in Tokyo, Rapinoe slammed Green for his dismissive claim that women in sports are just “complaining” with little legitimacy about what they are paid compared to male athletes, ESPN reported.
Rapinoe accused Green of being uneducated on the issues.
“It’s really unfortunate, in the position [Green’s] in, having all of the resources that he has and the ability to have a much more educated opinion, that he just hasn’t,” Rapinoe said on Tuesday, adding, “And then, drag all these other people into it by tagging them and speaking at a time when the [NCAA] tournament is going on and all that we saw with the lack of resources and funding.”
Rapinoe went on with harsh criticism of the Golden State Warriors center:
That’s frustrating that’s the take you have. You obviously showed your whole ass in not even understanding what we all talk about all the time — WNBA players and us on the national team. Like what Sue [Bird] said, you tagged the wrong people. You don’t think we asked for more money? I mean, what are we screaming about? Nonstop!
We are getting obnoxious to ourselves, to be honest. And then two or three days later, to completely double down on it is really frustrating. We know all this, about all social movements and all people who are marginalized, whether it’s by race or gender, religion, sexuality, whatever it is, it is not just their job to be the ones fighting oppression. We need all of the other people as well. So to have someone who does know what it is like to be oppressed, in many ways, to heap that all back on female players, or people who play female sports, it is just really disappointing.
Rapinoe was responding to several tweets Green posted on March 27 in which he took the women in the WNBA to task for merely “complaining” about not being paid the same as men even as their league lags far behind the revenue the NBA brings in.
I’ve been seeing a lot of talk about the pay gap between women and men. Especially in sports. It’s not even close. But let’s stop allowing y’all complaints to fall on deaf ears due to numbers. As long as y’all make the argument about pay, while the revenue stays the same…
— Draymond Green (@Money23Green) March 27, 2021
They will continue to point at the revenue not being high enough to cover bigger salaries. While that is true in damn near every business, how do we take that card out of their pockets? That’s the key to changing the pay. There’s no argument for lack of revenue, unless…
— Draymond Green (@Money23Green) March 27, 2021
You make those that say they stand for women actually stand up. The NBA wasn’t always the global game that it is today. It wasn’t always driving as much revenue as it does today. But there were people behind it, building the platform, and more importantly telling INDIVIDUAL…
— Draymond Green (@Money23Green) March 27, 2021
Green also spoke about the issues in an interview where he added that instead of sitting around and complaining, the female athletes need to convince powerful people and companies to support their sport more than they do.
Thanks to those who've taken an interest in this issue. I wanted to post the second half of this interaction with @KerithBurke & Draymond. He says women need to call out companies/entities who aren't valuing female athletes (they have been). Men with power need to do it too. pic.twitter.com/uz3nEoLNvk
— Kylen Mills (@KylenMills) April 5, 2021
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.