Just wanted to make sure that everyone was up to date with their sexist-occupations list, since 2013. A few big ones were caught encouraging the “men>women” lie around the world, recently.

(Very recently.) Yesterday, the Women’s Media Center released a report that stomped on my Mass Media Communication Studies Degree.

“Sixty-five percent of U.S. political stories published during a three-month span in 2014 were written by men,” wrote a man for Poynter Institute.

“The report, which examined about 27,000 pieces of content produced at major news organizations during three months in 2014, shows that men produced the majority of coverage in nearly all cases. Three organizations — “PBS Newshour,” the Chicago Sun-Times and The Huffington Post — reached or surpassed gender parity.”

 

• The New York Times: 32 percent female, 68 percent male
• The Denver Post: 32 percent female, 68 percent male
• USA Today: 33 percent female, 67 percent male
• New York Post: 36 percent female, 64 percent male
• The Washington Post: 39 percent female, 61 percent male
• The Los Angeles Times: 40 percent female, 60 percent male
• The Wall Street Journal: 40 percent female, 59 percent male
• The San Jose Mercury News: 41 percent female, 59 percent male
• The Chicago Sun-Times: 55 percent female, 45 percent male

Aside from my journalism passion being crushed, my soccer one also took a hard hit. Adding injury to insult, this Saturday marks the first match of the 2015 Women’s World Cup, and FIFA’s sexist decision to hold the entire tournament on artificial turf.

When Abby Wambach — the 2012 FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year — heard of this news, she noted, “The men would strike playing on artificial turf.”

 

Playing on turf is exponentially more dangerous than playing on real grass. And exponentially more expensive to upkeep. The Men’s 2014 World Cup got a $550Million Stadium built in a developing country (that ended up becoming a bus parking lot after the tournament ended) while women have to settle for turf in Canada.

Many famous female soccer players filed a lawsuit against FIFA, but later dropped the charges. 

The dozens of plaintiffs included U.S. Women’s National Team player Heather O’Reilly, who told NPR that the plan to use fake grass “is a blatant demonstration of FIFA not placing the women side by side with the men. You know, many men’s players refuse to play on artificial turf, actually, and the thought of it being played in the World Cup is almost laughable.”

How is it that oppression against women is still so evident and so prevalent? If professional athletes gave up their attempt to fight discrimination with their high profiles and the resources they have, what does that mean for us everyday women?