Rapinoe, Whose USWNT Was Trounced By a U15 Boys Team: 'You Are Not Better Just Because You're a Boy'
Soccer star and political activist Megan Rapinoe asserted this week that boys, on the basis of their gender, are not inherently better at sports than girls in a tirade against sexism in sports.
The problem for Rapinoe’s argument is that her team of adult women was handily defeated three years ago during a scrimmage against a team of adolescent boys from Texas.
“To every girl out there, to every boy out there, who watches this team, who wants to be on this team, or just wants to live their dream out, you are not lesser just because you’re a girl. You are not better just because you’re a boy,” Rapinoe said Wednesday, The Independent reported.
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 13, 2020
Apparently the woke, anti-Trump soccer star has forgotten the events of April 2, 2017, when she and her teammates were demolished on the field by a team of teenage boys.
CBS Sports reported the FC Dallas under-15 boys squad beat the U.S. Women’s National Team in a scrimmage by a score of 5-2.
The fact seriously undercuts Rapinoe’s argument, when she and other professional soccer players failed to rise up to the challenge of defeating teen boys.
That’s not to say that there haven’t been examples of all-girl teams defeating male opponents on the soccer field. It has happened.
In fact, as CNN reported, a British all-girl soccer team won a championship in 2019 after playing a schedule against only boys’ teams.
The Plymouth-based SB Frankfort Under-12 Girls team won the Argus Cup after going undefeated in a season against all-male opponents.
But Rapinoe seemed to assert that all athletes are created equal, which goes against biology.
If the two genders were truly equals in the field of competition, surely an NFL team would’ve picked up at least one female wide receiver or defensive back at this point in sports history.
The fact that women have failed to cross over into mens’ sports is proof enough that Rapinoe’s claims are based on a denial that men are biologically stronger than women, which is a fact. And facts cannot be sexist.
That is of course not to say that men are superior to women. Men and women are just better at different things, and that’s OK.
While many girls are more than capable of handling boys on a soccer field, Rapinoe and the Women’s National Team don’t appear to be among them.
Rapinoe’s comments about sports and gender were in response to a continuing dispute over a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Women’s National Team targeting its governing body, the U.S. Soccer Federation.
Rapinoe and her teammates are suing the USSF for $66 million, alleging that USSF officials have not paid them a salary equal to that of their counterparts on the Men’s National Team, The Associated Press reported.
A USSF legal document filed in the suit on Monday essentially said the women’s team did not perform equal work to that of the men.
“A reasonable juror could conclude that the job of MNT player requires materially different skill and more responsibility than plaintiffs’ job does, while also taking place under materially different working conditions,” the document partially read.
Rapinoe and her teammates took offense to the language in the argument, with Rapinoe accusing the USSF of “blatant misogyny and sexism,” according to The Independent.
“We’ve sort of felt that those are some of the undercurrent feelings that they’ve had for a long time,” she said.
At Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, Wednesday, Rapinoe and the rest of the women’s team protested the USSF before the game by turning their warm-up jerseys inside-out during the national anthem.
The women’s team then defeated Japan by a score of 3-1, winning the SheBelieves Cup title in the process.
USSF president Carlos Cordeiro issued an apology for the allegedly sexist language Wednesday.
“On behalf of U.S. Soccer, I sincerely apologize for the offense and pain caused by language in this week’s court filing, which did not reflect the values of our Federation or our tremendous admiration of our Women’s National Team,” Cordeiro said in the statement, according to the AP.
Cordeiro abruptly resigned from the USSF Thursday.
“It has been an incredible privilege to serve as the President of U.S. Soccer,” Cordeiro wrote on Twitter. “My one and only mission has always been to do what is best for our Federation.”
It has been an incredible privilege to serve as the President of U.S. Soccer.
My one and only mission has always been to do what is best for our Federation.
After discussions with the Board of Directors, I have decided to step down, effective immediately. My full statement: pic.twitter.com/4B7siuIqcL
— Carlos Cordeiro (@CACSoccer) March 13, 2020
CNN reported USSF vice president Cindy Parlow Cone will replace Cordeiro as the federation’s president.
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