LFG.
On tomorrow’s episode of Deadspin’s The Ladies Room podcast, U.S. Soccer champion and activist Megan Rapinoe joins Julie DiCaro and Jane McManus.
The hosts speak to Rapinoe about various subjects, from the new HBO documentary LFG, which chronicles the U.S women’s team’s ongoing fight for equal pay, endorsement deals for women in sports, and how leagues are handling LGBTQIA+ acceptance and other racial/social justice movements. Rapinoe also shares some advice on how she handles the haters, from anonymous online trolls to the former President of the United States.
“If you think about any other athlete or team that has been as successful as we have been over the course of time that we’ve been successful,” which — for anyone who’s counting — is two World Cup wins and an Olympic Gold for Rapinoe (so far). “It’s just incredible, how little we’re paid and how much we have to do to be paid even as [little as] we are,” she told the hosts.
But Rapinoe, soon to be 36, says she is committed to her work outside the lines for herself, her teammates, and the next generation of women’s soccer players.
“I hope to God that the next generation doesn’t have to do the same stuff that we do and that hopefully they will be in a much better position,” she says. “And if that’s, you know, the sort of legacy that we can have… I’ll be happy for them.”
In the meantime, though, there’s still work to be done. “There’s still, you know, funding that needs to happen and resources that need to be allotted and structures and systems that need to be built in order to allow women’s sports to grow at the rate that it really should be growing at,” she says. “It’s just that literally we’ve had cinder blocks tied to our feet for all of these years.”
If you want to hear more, you can listen to The Ladies Room on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. Again, The One With Megan Rapinoe drops tomorrow.
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