4 Thursday, May 17, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com OPINION 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. W omen have faced inequality for as long as we have had written history – especially when it comes to female athletes. Today, players on the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team – the No. 1 women’s soccer team in the world – get paid “as little as 40%” of those on the U.S. Men’s Soccer Team. The pay gap between male and female athletes is glaringly obvious and largely unjustified. In fact, it is often overwhelming. Furthermore, there is little to no representation of women on the governing bodies of sports organizations and previous attempts to achieve this representation have failed. In fact, only 18 percent of board members were women across the 28 international sports federations, and this percentage has been static from 2014 to 2016. If women can’t even get onto the boards of these organizations, how can we expect any change? Even the executives at FIFA admit we shouldn’t be holding our breath for equality; a former FIFA secretary general for the organization stated it might be “another 23 World Cups before potentially women should receive the same amount (of prize money) as men.” This pay gap will not close, and if it does, it will do so very slowly. This means another 100 years until female athletes can expect to be treated as equals to their male counterparts. It asks women to wait 100 more years to receive equal compensation when they often have to outperform men by a huge margin just to gain any kind of respect. If these organizations continue to remain ignorant of this pressing issue and fail to address it, female athletes will never be able to close the pay gap. Action needs to begin at the top, and that means acknowledging the issue, allowing women to speak about it and implementing real policy change. At all levels of sport, male athletes are held in a higher regard than female athletes. Because of this, it becomes much more difficult to achieve equality. Speaking from personal experience, I can say the men’s teams always get priority. In high school, they got the most qualified coaches, the earlier practice time and more money to pay for gear. The athletic director of the school advertised men’s games and not women’s games. Our administrators and teachers showed up to the men’s games and not the women’s games. As a result, students followed suit. In collegiate athletics, this systematic inequity is most easily seen in ticket prices. This study shows men’s teams are thought to be better simply because tickets to their games cost more due to the assumption that the price of a product reflects its value. This issue can be costly in terms of public perception of women’s sports. The public needs to understand female athletes are just as valuable as male athletes, but different ticket pricing perpetuates the public’s perception that men’s sports are more valuable. At the University of Michigan, season tickets for men’s basketball cost $175; season tickets for women’s basketball cost $45. Both teams were ranked in the top 25 throughout the season, both teams made the NCAA tournament, both teams play in the Big Ten and both teams play at Crisler Center. Despite the similarities in merit, location and schedule, the women’s team had an average attendance of 2,672 people per game while the men’s team had an average attendance of 11,121 people per game. The public, a.k.a. the consumers, need to know female athletics are just as important as male athletics. Without this understanding, the sports world will continue to justify the pay gap and other inequalities. College athletes, both male and female, put in a lot of time playing their sport. It is disappointing to know despite equal amounts of hours of work, one team is valued more by the University and therefore its students. It is important that inequality is stopped in its early stages, and perhaps the University can set an example for other colleges and universities around the nation by starting to level the playing field for our young female athletes. They work just as hard and are just as talented; in fact, Katelynn Flaherty became the all-time leading scorer for Michigan basketball – male or female – this year. With that kind of talent should come equal respect, and that should be reflected in ticket prices, advertising and support from the University as a whole. ETHAN KESSLER | COLUMN EMMA CHANG Editorial Page Editor EMMA RICHTER Managing Editor Emma Chang Joel Danilewitz Samantha Goldstein Elena Hubbell Emily Huhman Tara Jayaram Jeremy Kaplan Sarah Khan Magdalena Mihaylova Ellery Rosenzweig Jason Rowland Anu Roy-Chaudhury Alex Satola Ali Safawi Ashley Zhang Sam Weinberger Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. ASIF BECHER Editor in Chief EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS MARLEE BURRIDGE | COLUMN The pay gap in women’s sports Julia Montag can be reached at jtmon@umich.edu. Careening Towards Uncertainty L ast Tuesday afternoon marked the beginning of a new chapter for America’s Middle East policy. Ahead of the official May 12th deadline, President Trump announced his refusal to recertify sanctions relief for Iran, thereby withdrawing the U.S. from the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal. By no measure was the Iran nuclear deal, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA, perfect. Certain aspects and provisions of the deal have no doubt proved contrary to the interests of Israel and the U.S. However, Trump’s dismissal of the deal without an apparent replacement or follow-up plan, in keeping with his characteristically shortsighted style, leaves America’s policy towards Iran in a troubling state of uncertainty. The deal, although derided as a temporary fix to a permanent problem, addressed several components of Iran’s budding nuclear program which was ostensibly for energy purposes only but was agreed upon to be military in nature by the international community. All of these comprehensive limitations were enforced through mandatory inspections by the United Nations’ nuclear arm, the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA. In exchange for hobbling its nuclear abilities, Iran would be relieved of the crippling economic sanctions that had followed its nuclear development since 2006, which had cost it hundreds of billions of dollars by isolating it from global financial markets and limiting its oil exports. The provisions of the deal, laid out in ten and 15-year segments, allowed for longer-term arrangements to be made in the interim, which could address the larger issue of Iranian nuclear capability. The lack of permanence within the deal was only natural, as Iran’s extant nuclear knowledge can never be destroyed, nor can it legally be denied the right to carry out nuclear activity for peaceful means. Iran’s regime clearly deemed the possession of nuclear weapons beneficial to its foreign policy goals before the deal, and the JCPOA did what it could by successfully presenting sanctions relief as a worthwhile tradeoff in the short- term. Where the JCPOA most notably faltered, however, was in the lack of concern it demonstrated regarding Israel. As Iran has collected the windfalls of the JCPOA’s sanctions relief, it has spent billions to arm Hezbollah and other Shiite militias in Lebanon and Syria, as has been adamantly expressed by Israel. The use of sanctions relief by Tehran to fund proxy wars against Israeli interests has led to unprecedented levels of conflict in the region, weakening ties between the U.S. and our strongest Middle Eastern ally. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the deal, however, was most likely not the result of a comprehensive and balanced assessment. Since his presidential campaign, Trump has maintained the deal’s nefarious one-sidedness. Additionally, withdrawal from the JCPOA is consistent with Trump’s persistent hostility towards both Obama’s legacy and multilateral deals that have taken the place of a more traditional emphasis on policy. The long-term ambitions present in the U.S. withdrawal are, instead, represented by national-security advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Bolton’s hawkish propensity for regime Continue reading on page 5. “Since his presidential campaign, Trump has maintained the deal’s nefarious one-sidedness.”