American Women: Global Champions, Second-Class Citizens
How American Women Athletes Dominate Globally While Facing Inequality at Home
After 12 days of absolute inspiration, tears, and record-shattering achievements, the U.S. women walked away with a metaphorical “fuck around and find out” badge of honor, achieving the 3rd highest medal count in the world for any country. Their 67 medals put them ahead of 3rd place Japan, which had a total of 45.
67 medals!
I’m not very patriotic these days, if we’re being honest, but watching the very English Emma Hayes after the U.S. soccer team took home gold made me pause. She was at a loss for words but looked up into the stands, glassy-eyed, and humbly shared, “I love America. It made me. And I always say that. It definitely made me.”
In an interview later, Hayes disclosed that she had no opportunities to coach in England; they actually wouldn’t let her. So she came to the U.S., where she evolved into the coach she had always dreamed of becoming. This country was her catalyst, and yet, as an American woman, I can’t help but feel the opposite so much of the time. I can tell you that, as of late, most of us are feeling quite disillusioned.
The U.S. is nowhere near gender parity in collegiate or youth sports.
Across all three NCAA divisions, only 41% of head coaches for women’s teams are women. This means only 4 out of 10 NCAA women’s teams are coached by women. And women head coaches lead only 24% of the 20,255 total NCAA men's and women’s teams. While we are dominating in the top 1%, the vast majority of female athletes experience their sport strictly through a male lens.
As a player, I had two head female coaches out of about 20. Both of them were stripped of all compassion and care, possibly because, to be taken seriously as a coach, they had to be cold, tough, and airtight.
After a collegiate career playing for a woman who sucked the spirit out of the players and the game, I vividly remember telling our Athletic Director, “Do not hire another woman.” Because there were so few positive representations of female coaches, I assumed gender was the problem.
This was also baked into my internalized belief that women’s sports were like men’s, but underwater—and other belittling things my male peers would tell me. In retrospect, we had all been gaslit to believe men inherently belonged in sport, while women, the weaker class, were just borrowing. Cute, right?
A War on the Female Body.
Beyond the lack of representation in sport, the right to bodily autonomy, health, safety, and basic healthcare is under attack. Currently, in the U.S., there is a war being waged on women’s bodies. What’s crazy is that female empowerment is good for the bottom line, so this tells me all roads lead back to fear, paranoia, and insecurity. A strong man seeks to embolden a strong woman; a weak man limits her. Or so I hear.
It reminds me of when Trump publicly harassed Megan Rapinoe for missing a PK in 2023, a year after President Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The whiplash is unreal.
Trump wrote on his media platform, Truth,
"The 'shocking and totally unexpected' loss by the U.S. Women's Soccer Team to Sweden is fully emblematic of what is happening to the our once great Nation under Crooked Joe Biden," "Many of our players were openly hostile to America - No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close. WOKE EQUALS FAILURE."
"Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to Hell!!! MAGA," Trump added.
So the party of fear is doubling down on their control over the female body in the political arena, while U.S. women are unabashedly dominating on the global stage at the Olympics.
Can you feel the tension?
So why are U.S. women so much more advanced than the rest of the world?
In 1972, Title IX ensured equitable access and resources across education, which in the U.S. includes athletics. It was a sneaky education bill they kept on the low so no one would notice the athletics part.
This was also around the time Kathrine Switzer ran the Boston Marathon. The first woman to do so, she was ruthlessly harassed throughout the race, with one man even assaulting her to steal her bib and keep her from competing. So you can see how far we have come from that to 67 medals.
To be honest, Title IX may have been one of the greatest bait-and-switch schemes of the women’s movement. I don’t know if Republicans knew the extent to which this would catalyze the women’s rights movement.
Fifty years later… 3rd most medals in the world.
And while U.S. women are smashing it on the global stage, youth participation in sport is in crisis, with twice as many girls dropping out of sport as boys by age 14. Most sources cite low body confidence as the reason. I can’t imagine why, as global leaders in eating disorders, with an out-of-control media and tech industry and very little regulation on what is broadcast to children. Add to this a beauty and fashion industry hell-bent on selling us things to fix problems we didn’t know we had, and where do these girls get it from? Not to mention the worst of it, a dystopian Handmaid's Tale turned reality, as the right legalizes witch hunts to burn women seeking bodily autonomy, often in life-or-death situations.
This is a global issue beyond the U.S. However, as the leaders in athletic excellence, the juxtaposition is confusing. There is access, but only for those who want it badly enough and have the resources to dedicate their lives to their sport. But what about the 99% of girls and women who would undoubtedly benefit from participating in sport?
It’s not just a “let the girls play,” rah-rah, you-go-girl #inspiring reason for widening access and, maybe more importantly, retention in sport. Sport, as it turns out, may be our greatest driver in the gender equity movement. What’s most interesting to examine is the effect sport has had on C-suites and leadership.
Women Athlete’s Win in the C-Suites.
While only 6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, the proportion of women CEOs who were athletes is impressive—90 percent of them played sports at some point, and 54 percent played sports at the university level. Sports provide one with community while emphasizing purpose, discipline, hard work, commitment, and, most importantly, command over one’s body. Women having access to that kind of education is proven immensely powerful in the trajectory and evolution of a person’s life.
This is nowhere near parity, but there is a clear correlation between sport’s ability to propel women beyond social constructs and reach for positions historically out of bounds. And if we look at the expansion of women’s sports across the country, this widening access and opportunity will continue to grow and produce leaders in social and political arenas who affect change at scale, combating human and systemic bullies and oppressors.
I appreciate Emma Hayes and the acknowledgment that this country made her. This country has made many of these athletes who otherwise would never have had the opportunities American women have had in the sporting arena, myself included. Sport changed my life; it gave me community, purpose, and exposure to other cultures and places. It even helped pay for college—twice.
Most importantly, I know how to stand in a group of men who see absolutely no value in you, accept the discomfort of being picked last, and still prove them wrong.
The tools and confidence sport gives women to hold their own in a world dominated by men are useful in a world, well, dominated by men. Whether in the C-suites or the political arena, sport has the power to transform a person from the inside out, preparing them with confidence, connection, and a “fuck around and find out” attitude.
Because if we fuel and create the conditions for women and girls to access and stay in sport, we catalyze change in every sector.
For more on Mo’s work in systems and culture change check out momofitz.com or follow on instagram @momofitzz