The Athlete Confidential
Welcome to The Athlete Confidential where we believe that we are humans first, and athletes second. Stories by athletes for athletes that focus on topics coaches don't always discuss at practice. We are not here to talk about performance goals, training plans or game tactics... well maybe a little, but, our main focus is to cover topics outside of training and performance. Rather we aim to encourage conversations about mental health, abuse, relationships, education, equality and much more. At The Athlete Confidential we seek to empower the human within every athlete.
The Athlete Confidential
The Game Is Not the Same, Time to Change the Rules
What if the problem isn’t how hard we’re working—but the system we’re working within?
In this episode of The Athlete Confidential, we explore the myth of meritocracy—the belief that success is earned solely through talent, intelligence, and effort—and how it shows up in sports, especially women’s sports. From being told to "just be grateful" for the bare minimum to navigating financial barriers that make even getting in the game a privilege, we unpack how this deeply rooted myth fuels shame, self-blame, and burnout.
Joined by guests Stacey Rutland, founder of Income Movement, and Jenna Gerry & Amy Durrence from Broad Consultants, we examine how structural inequalities—from unpaid internships to wage gaps—keep the playing field anything but level. We also discuss how policies like universal basic income could radically change what access, equity, and athlete well-being actually look like.
This episode is part of the "Myth of Meritocracy" campaign—a call to action led by athletes #ad
To learn more about these initiatives, follow Income Movement on Instagram @incomemovement or visit Income Movement to join their community and weekly newsletter.
Follow Broad Consultants on Instagram @broadconsultants
Follow other influencers a part of the campaign: @alysiamontaro @hannahzunichcosta @bballerbritt @cailin.bloom
This is your host, gabby Ewing, and you are listening to the Athlete Confidential Podcast. Let's do a mental health check-in. If I'm being honest, my entire identity and self-worth has been tied to being an athlete. It sounds so cliche, right, but it's okay not to be okay.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, welcome back to the Athlete Confidential Podcast. It has been a while since you have all heard from me. It's officially season three and there's no better way to start off season three doing something completely different than we have before. I have today three guests with me. I've never podcasted with more than one guest, but I think it's very fitting Three guests, season three.
Speaker 2:Before we introduce our guests, I'm going to give you guys a little bit of background about what we are going to be talking about today. So today's episode is about pulling back the curtain on one of the most persistent myths in our culture the idea that hard work alone determines success. It's time we talk about the lie behind meritocracy. And with that, I will let our three guests introduce themselves. We are going to start with Stacey Wonderful. Thank you, gabby, so thankful to be here and to be in conversation with you all today.
Speaker 2:My name is Stacey Rutland I use she her pronouns. I'm the founder of an organization called Income Movement and we are an organization that is focused on building and supporting the grassroots and coalition side of a movement for basic income, and the idea of basic income is that we are all deserving and worthy in this moment in our human history, where we have more wealth and more privilege than ever, that every person that is alive today deserves to have their basic needs met. I'm here through that capacity and really excited to be talking with you, gabby, with Amy and Jenna, and connecting with more people out there in the world to learn more about the work that we're doing Awesome. Thank you so much, stacey. It's so happy to have you as well. We will move on next to Jenna.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Gabby. Yeah, really excited to be here. I'm Jenna Gary. I'm one of the co-founders and partners of Broad Consultants. I've really spent my career of the last 13 years focused on the intersection of work and family and ensuring that pregnant, new parents, caregivers, have access to equitable policies, pay, family and medical leave, pregnancy accommodations you know, ensuring they actually have what they need to thrive and recently launched broad consultants with my partner, Amy here, who will introduce herself, because we really believe that women's sports in particular has so much untapped potential to really be the place to be a policy change maker, and so we're so excited to be part of this campaign. Thanks.
Speaker 2:Jenna. Ok, we will pass the mic to Amy.
Speaker 4:Thanks so much, gabby. Thanks for having us so excited to be here. As Stacey said, in conversation with everyone, and as my lovely partner mentioned, I am the second co-founder and partner of Broad Consultants and, as Jenna's already said, we're really working to move sports, in particular women's sports, from community service to sustained policy change and systemic impact in the country, understanding and believing that it really is an untapped lever for change. Right now, a little bit about me I'm an attorney, a lifelong runner and tennis player. My career has been focused on the intersection of financial security and gender-based violence, so really focusing on how to ensure that survivors are financially secure enough to get and stay safe as part of that work. Really just economic development more generally and how can we look at systemic changes that will bring us all to prosperity rather than just a few? I think we're going to get into that a little bit more in this conversation. Really happy to be here. Thanks for having me, gabby.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thank you all for introducing yourselves. So a little bit of background on how I met the three of you and why we're doing this podcast. So I originally met Jenna through a mentor of mine, mo Fitzgerald, who's actually been on the podcast previously. She sent me this very interesting campaign that was looking for influencers and I thought I just found it very interesting and I wasn't really sure how this was necessarily going to relate to my life or the athlete confidential space at all yet. But if Mo says it's a good idea, I tend to trust her. So I was like sure I'll reach out. So I reached out to Jenna, jenna and I hopped on a Zoom call. We had a great time connected right away and immediately saw the connection between what Stacey is trying to do with income movement and what we are trying to do a lot of times in the athlete confidential space.
Speaker 2:We have talked about women's sports a lot as a female athlete myself and equity within women's sports as well, and I started to realize that my own personal journey being a professional athlete and playing overseas really aligned with a lot of what they spoke a little bit about already and more of what we'll get into today. But just how hard it was really to be a female athlete playing overseas, trying to make a living for myself, working really hard my entire life to do this one thing, and it just it didn't really equate to what I thought it would, and we'll kind of get into more of that as we go on through the podcast, but that's just like a little bit of the background For those of you that aren't quite sure what meritocracy is. That is okay, we are going to get into that right here. So I'm going to pass it back to Stacey and if you just kind of want to educate our listeners a little bit more specifically about what meritocracy is and why is it considered a myth, bit more specifically about what meritocracy is and why is it considered a myth, I'm going to start by just reading a little bit of kind of a textbook definition, because it's always good to have that shared knowledge or kind of perspective.
Speaker 2:So a meritocracy is a way for us to think about how a system like a society is set up and how it functions. You know, at the end of it, isocracy, right? So with democracy, all these different kind of different structures, this is specifically focused on economics and the idea of a meritocracy is that our systems are built and our economy is built on the level playing field. So people's wealth, their position of power, is directly tied to their work output, their skills, their intelligence, all of those pieces. At the end of thinking through that, if you're poor, you're poor because you're not working hard enough, you're not smart enough, you haven't put in the time, you haven't put in the effort. If you're rich, you earned it, you worked harder than others, you're smarter, and that every part of where we sit, when we think about class and financial um within the financial system, wherever we are landing in, that is totally due to the individual and the individual's ability or lack of ability to do the things that we think are important, like work hard and um and be smart.
Speaker 2:I would assume that for a lot of people that are listening right now, justy with that definition is like, hmm, that maybe we should unpack that a little bit. We found, you know I said at the beginning of when I was introducing myself, I founded an organization called Income Movement that's focused on basic income and you know, as we've been having conversations over the last many years with community members all the way from just everyday community members moms, kids, elderly, coming together to have conversations about what their lived experience is, what the reality is right now, all the way up to, like members of Congress, the conversation pretty consistently where we talk about what's working, what's not working and how maybe we could make it better. This idea of meritocracy comes in over and over again the idea that the problem right now is people, not the systems. The problem is people aren't doing the things that we're saying they need to be doing.
Speaker 2:And this is really deeply built into the American narrative about how we function as a society the idea of pull yourself up by your bootstraps, the idea that everybody can attain the American dream, the idea that upward mobility is possible for every single person in our country and that if you aren't experiencing that it's because you don't want it enough. You're not doing enough to make that happen. We find in our conversations around basic income this is the place people go to over and over again. So when we were thinking about what's the conversation, what does it mean for us to start to be a little bit more proactive in leading the conversation? In this space of the broader community? There's a thriving movement for basic income. There's pilots that are happening all across the country. There's mayors that are supporting it and legislators and a whole range of folks who support it. There's probably a pilot happening, certainly in your state, maybe even in your town right now, in your city right now, people who are getting a basic income, which is just so that we're all clear on that too.
Speaker 2:A basic income is the idea that a government system gives a certain guaranteed amount of wealth that we do right now and we also commiserate with that have some of the highest unhoused community rates in the United States or any country in the world. We have really high child hunger rates. The amount of people in our country that can't make ends meet month to month and are having to sacrifice basic, all those basic needs, feels like a real crime. And so when we start to have conversations about that idea and when folks who are supporters are trying to grow the conversation, this myth of meritocracy we just hit up against it over and over again. So the community came together and said we need to kind of figure out how to take the reins on this a little bit, because it's a pretty steep hill to climb. If you start talking about basic income and people say if you're unhoused it's because you're not working hard enough, or like no free handouts in this country, what are you talking about? I had to work my butt to get where I am and everybody else should have to be the same. The thing that I've had to do. I think it becomes a really complex conversation to have with folks. So we started this campaign. It's been running for about nine months, it's been running on social media for about six weeks and the whole idea is let's start having a conversation with folks about this, understand their own relationship to the ideas and try to help us all think about what a different world could look like if we all came together and maybe made some changes. Yeah, thank you so much, stacey, for providing that background information for us.
Speaker 2:You mentioned the campaign, so let's kind of talk about that a little bit more. The slogan for the campaign is the game is not the same time to change the rules, and this is, I think, where the connection is for me personally as an athlete and probably for a lot of my listeners. Right, Because a lot of the people that you are all working with are athletes. It's athletes and gamers, but we're going to focus on the athlete side of it, and so why did you choose to go with athletes and using athletes to kind of start these conversations? So there's an amazing group of folks there's. There's a, an entity called the Movement Building Coalition for Basic Income that is comprised of hundreds of people from across the country, from you, from more than 80 organizations and grassroots folks and lived experience experts and artists that have all come together to talk about and think about this campaign and they, as we were thinking through and as more research has been done around, who's open to basic income, who's open to change.
Speaker 2:What we found within our movement is that this probably isn't surprising. Young people get it. I think Gen Z is really the first generation where clearly, the goals, the hopes and the path that their parents and grandparents had in front of them to reach some kind of financial success are unattainable or incredibly difficult. I just want to also say that there's for large portions of our community and society those have never been attainable, or what it looks like to try to attain those things is even more difficult. So I don't want to pretend like oh, the American dream in the 50s was great and everybody was prospering and everybody can be part of the American dream. We know that's not true. And yet we also know that right now, if you're 20 years old and what you're being told is go to school, get a college degree and you're going to land a good job and you're going to be able to have a house and start a family, that whole model feels I have an 18 year old. She's just like what are you even talking about? So like, okay, of course I'm probably not the best model because I went to school, I have a hundred and you know I got $150,000 in debt to get my master's. I basically have been saddled with the equivalent of a mortgage, you know, after going to school, and so I totally recognize that. For you know that this generation is probably the generation where they're like, yeah, what else? What's, what's a different path? No-transcript. I think what you're bringing up is exactly right.
Speaker 2:What we found you know, this kind of group, this coalition has been working on and thinking about this when we saw that, like young people, get it. What we also started to look at is what's going on in our movement, and there's actually not very many young people that are part of the basic income movement or part of kind of the revisioning of what our economy could look like. They're focused. You know, a lot of young folks are focused on climate change. Absolutely. Get it Like existential crisis, absolutely. I think that we're also very quickly reaching an existential crisis from an economics perspective. I think some of that maybe is what the current administration is. Maybe the cracks in our, in the in that kind of precarious nature of our economy maybe is becoming a little more more apparent with a lot of the kind of shifting that's happening.
Speaker 2:So we were like we need young people to understand. You know, they have the passion, they get it. How do we actually start to invite some of the younger folks into the conversation? And that was really what was behind this the idea of the myth of meritocracy and, in particular, that tagline, gabby, that you said the game is not the same time to change the rules. And so then, as the community started to really go deep into that tagline and young people, sports athletes and then gamers became such an obvious and clear metaphor to start using to kind of enter into the conversation with those folks.
Speaker 2:And I think, too, something so beautiful about this campaign I mean, you talked about how young people they get it right, they're starting to understand, but they don't have necessarily the tools or the right language to use for this conversation. And I think that that is where I was coming from as well. When I had my first conversation with Jenna. It all clicked for me and I was like, oh, I 100% felt this. I've had conversations kind of about this, but I've never really known how to talk about it or what it means or what the solutions are. And so hopefully, with this campaign and what you're doing at the income movement, we are going to be able to provide more people, especially young people, with the education, the background and the language to help further this and really make an impact. Jenna and Amy, I would love to turn this over to you a little bit and talk about more of the connection with athletes and this campaign and specifically female athletes. I know both of you talked about that and that being kind of a focus point in your work.
Speaker 4:Sure, I'm happy to get us started in terms of like personal sort of connection to the campaign and what we've been talking about. I grew up in the South and I think some of, at least in my experience some of these myths that we're talking about and some manifestations of these myths are very sort of very strongly come out, I think, in the culture, and I was always athletic and always wanted to play sports, and at my house there was never any, you know, oh, you can't do that because you're a girl. So I was. My dad taught me how to throw a curveball with an orange when I was like six or seven years old and I was playing football with my dad and my brother and out in the neighborhood and was actually like pretty good. And then when, if I may say so myself, then when it came time to like actually sign up for peewee or whatever, for example, or like the little League baseball, I was told that I wasn't allowed and I was told that it would. In fact, I think the terminology that I received was it'll make you strange, and so, yeah, which is such a bummer, you know, and I do think things have. You know, women's sports is really changed a lot in terms of people's attention and interest in it since then.
Speaker 4:But you know, this whole myth of meritocracy oh, if you're just the best, if you just work hard, if you just practice hard, if you have the skills, then you're going to be able to compete and you're going to be able to compete successfully. Well, that was definitely not true for me and the ways that I wanted to compete, right, I didn't even get an opportunity. I didn't even get a chance to show my skills, even though I, like I said, was very good. I think in that way it was like that was very real for me, and so I turned to sports that were more for girls, I guess, and so I started playing tennis, but then again felt another, I guess, and so I started playing tennis, but then again felt another really like a very real, you know, manifestation of this myth of meritocracy. Because tennis, for those of you who aren't familiar with the youth sport or I guess you know, just tennis writ large, it's expensive, it's really expensive to participate in, and so I was kind of a ragtag person on the court with a bag that didn't match my racket and without, like the name brand clothes which you know. You can argue that doesn't really matter.
Speaker 4:But I also was going up against kids whose parents were paying who you know ungodly amounts to be able to get them private lessons every single day, and so, no matter how much I was running on my own or I was, you know, going out to the court by myself and hitting serves, like I was never going to be able to compete at the level of these kids who were getting essentially, some even homeschooled so that they would be able to play all the time, because it just cost a significant amount of money and I was relatively privileged financially and even being able to participate. So like, for example, you have to pay to even get into a tournament that determines your rankings right. So like you couldn't even really show up competitively in the sport at all unless you paid money for every single time that you entered into a tournament. So those are just a couple of ways and in particular, my own experience, but also like in the sports realm, that this, the myth of meritocracy, really rings true for me in my in my life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that that's so relatable. I think, again, a lot of my listeners hearing that will relate to that. Personally, I relate to that and I'll talk a little bit more about that. But, jenna, I'd love to hear from you next.
Speaker 3:Very similar to Amy, like this campaign resonates with me both on a personal and professional level. So I think, yeah, I grew up with you know at the time, what people refer to me as like a tomboy, right Like I was rocking my Chicago Bulls full windsuit with my hat, little bowl cut, like you know, being given strange looks as I went to the girls bathroom, like what are you doing in here? Type of yeah, it was, it was great and I like loved sports, right Like that, that was my life and I was like a soccer and basketball player and I was like gonna go to UNC. You know that was like my path. But you know it was the 90s and the resources, like even at that age I could tell that like, oh, I'm wearing this hand-me-down jersey. That was clearly the boys' tees that they had, you know, three years ago, because it's like boxy and like 10 times too big for me. And I think you know I grew up in a small town in Minnesota and you know I saw when we went to the affluent neighborhood next to us and the facilities they had in the training and like, yeah, you know similar like and I can't even imagine now how you sports have exploded, but it was the same like getting into the Olympic development team, getting the training, like it was so expensive, like it was so expensive and my parents are like, or we can pay the $10 for you to be in the like rec league here in town. And I was like, okay, I guess I'm playing the rec league, which was great.
Speaker 3:But I think, you know, at that age I obviously, as we were talking about gaming, like I didn't have the vocabulary to under like articulate why I was so angry, but I had a deep feeling that this is unfair, this doesn't feel right, this doesn't like I'm working as hard as everyone else, I'm running, I'm training, I care. You know, I think I'm pretty good, I was pretty short, but you know I had that against me. But like I knew that even though I was better than players on these teams we played against, they were going much further than me, you know, and so I saw both kind of that gender dynamic but also the income inequality that shows up within sports and I think both are so, so persistent. And then you know, professionally, like I kind of that inner like this is unfair, this is unjust, like led me to law school and to really wanting to focus on gender inequities. And so, you know, for over the last like 13 years of my professional career, it's really been about advocating for the people who are left out of our systems that are meant to support that.
Speaker 3:So pregnant workers, survivors of violence, caregivers, underpaid workers, workers of color, immigrant workers, right and again, again, I've seen this myth of meritocracy used to dismiss the real structural barriers that these communities are facing. Every day, it's like they treat pregnant women needing accommodations or chest feeding accommodations on their return to work as like a personal issue that they need to just deal with. And if they can't deal with it, then like they're just not trying hard enough, instead of like a structural deficit where we've like built spaces and systems that are not meant for these individuals. And so I think I've seen it, I like felt it as a young athlete. I have experienced it working with my clients throughout the last 13 years, thank you. Even.
Speaker 3:What I have seen is like, even in a place like California, where I live and work, where there is a paid family and medical leave program, people won't access it, even though it's their money. They paid into this program. It's meant to be there when they need it. They feel like it's somehow taking like a government handout or it's somehow like well, I can't take that, because that will mean less than me, that I'm somehow getting like help in a way. And so, unless we change this narrative and really call it all for what it is, which is like BS right, like this is true, like then we can pass all the policies we want, but people won't access them and the systems won't change, and so that's kind of like yeah, why I was like so excited to be able to step into this space with broad consultants and with the income movement.
Speaker 2:Again. So much of this is just so relatable, resonates so much with me. I mean, you're talking about people not wanting to ask for handouts. There was a point when I had retired from soccer and I'm trying to, you know, get into the workforce. I'm working my butt off. I finally get like a full-time, paid internship so still only on a year and I wasn't making enough to support myself and I finally applied for food stamps and that felt so shameful to me and I know anyone that knows me knows that I am a super hard worker and as I've gotten older and moved farther away from that, I've been able to reflect like that was not shameful. I needed that. I am a super hard worker and as I've gotten older and moved farther away from that, I've been able to reflect like that was not shameful, I needed that. I needed that to get through that internship so I could get to the next phase of my career, which is where I'm at now, where I am making enough money to support myself and I'm not as worried about finances for like the first time since I don't even know when. So, yeah, I think that it's so important to have these conversations, and same for me as well, you know, I grew up in Hawaii in late 90s, early 2000s, pre social media.
Speaker 2:So when we talk about recruiting and having opportunities for athletes in Hawaii, it was much harder back then because you weren't able to create film the same way that these kids are now and there are still barriers, of course, but I remember it being so hard to even imagine the idea of going to college and playing sports in college. I didn't have very many examples of that. There were very, very few, I think from the island I was from specifically, where there's even what we call the outer islands, so any island outside of Oahu, there was even less opportunity for us there. I always felt that barrier of trying to get to the next level and I worked my butt off. And when I did get to college, I mean by my senior year, I was probably one of the best midfielders in all of Division II. I easily could have competed at the Division I level. I mean my team, we played Division I teams in the offseason that we competed with, we tied, we beat sometimes. And that's not just to toot my own horn, but just to say that yeah, I had to work really hard and I didn't have the scholarship opportunities that my peers did. I committed super late.
Speaker 2:I was scrambling at the end of my senior year in high school trying to figure out how I was going to get to college, how I was going to play sports in college, and I got very lucky and very thankful for where I landed. And then, when I took that to the next level and got to the pro level, that experience was very shocking to me. I was not making money, very much money at all. I was making $400 a month. Granted, I didn't have expenses so I didn't have to pay for my living, and I lived with a host family that paid for most of my groceries, the credit car for me and the other Americans that were there. But I mean, still, four hundred dollars a month was not a livable wage. And thankfully, you're not building towards anything, right, exactly, you're trying to build towards the thing, exactly, exactly. And so that was my first experience playing professionally. And then, um, my next experience, I wasn't playing professionally. I, I was playing, I guess. So I'm not a professional.
Speaker 2:I was playing for a club team in England. There was a men's team and a women's team, and our men's team practiced in the stadium. We did not. The one time we got to practice in the stadium was because there was a camera crew coming out to film us. Because we had made a historical run in the FA Cup for our club for the first time.
Speaker 2:We were doing very well, made a historical run in the FA Cup for our club for the first time we were doing very well. They gave us a little patch of grass that we could practice on. We couldn't use the goals. It was like, okay, we're just going to film you passing in this area, don't even go into the 18 yard box. It was just absolutely ridiculous. And even if we had a game which we did play some games in the stadium even if we had a game, we couldn't practice in there, like the day before, and our practice field was turf and our game field was grass.
Speaker 2:So it didn't really make sense and so that was yeah, it was just very eye-opening and very frustrating and even though I was really good, it was really hard on my mental and emotional health because in a big part that was the financial piece of it. I just could not keep going financially. I was digging myself into a hole and I couldn't keep showing up every day knowing that I was doing that and I also just started to realize how hard it is to get to that next level because there are just so many factors and so many barriers and one of them is the financial piece and not only looking at that at the very surface level but like if you are not getting paid what you deserve or what you need to live, then the emotional, mental toll that that takes on you.
Speaker 3:Gabby, I think you just hit on to me like again. I think when I think about all this work, it's like, yeah, it's all the same because it's all operating within our capitalist system, right. Like, of course, all the same issues because we're all working in the same system and we can't escape that. And I think what you just touched on to me is like the complete parallel between like yeah, a lot of people can't keep playing because they can't afford it, right. It's the same when we think about like terrible unpaid internship scheme, right, that like throughout college where you saw all your like peers taking all these unpaid internships and even starting high school now it's wild. Right.
Speaker 3:And for others, many others, you can't afford. I can't afford to give 12 hours a week to an unpaid internship because I need to be actually getting paid so I can support myself and my family and what have you. And I think it's just there's. It's that complete parallel. It's the exact same within our economic system, what so many I mean athletes, particularly women athletes are experiencing and what you went through.
Speaker 4:Jenna, that thing about the unpaid internships, right, it's not that you're not, as the unpaid intern, creating value, right, you are creating value. You're just not getting compensated for the value that you're creating. The business or the firm or whatever is taking that value from you without compensating you fairly for the value that you're creating. I mean, yesterday was May Day, right, which is like it's very timely. I mean yesterday was May Day, right, which is like it's very timely for this conversation, like International Workers Day, right. And I saw that if the federal minimum wage in the United States had increased as it should with the value increase that workers are providing, it should be at $26 an hour. It's still $7.25 an hour the federal minimum wage, and so that's on that bigger scale of like workers creating all of this value and not having access to their share of the value that they're creating.
Speaker 4:And I think both of y'all have brought up something that I think is like the thing which is in the capitalist system, jenna, like you're talking about, there is a focus on the individual. Like you're lazy, you're making bad decisions, you're doing these things because that way it's a distraction. Like don't look over here, don't look at these systems or question these systems that are actually sucking and extracting all of the value that workers create. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was thinking as Gabby, as you were talking about your experience. I've never been an athlete and besides, like you know, I went through middle school and then it was like, okay, I guess I'm not gonna be playing volleyball, it's only more so. Then all my, all my athletics turned to like into, you know, as a cyclist and stuff like that, but, um, but so I'm gonna. I'm, I'm probably the one here that's coming at this from the least like insider space, so I'll make all of like the, the outsider references. I, as you were talking, gabby, I was thinking about I've watched all of the Welcome to Wrexham show. Glad, when they spent in the first season, in particular when they finally spent some real time with the um, with the girls, the women's soccer team, um, or football team, depending on where you are, the globe, um and um. And to me I mean there were a couple of things that that are this kind of direct correlation, like coordination or correlation between what's going on in athletics and what's going on in our economy and how it functions, like the fact that so much of what you were talking about, gabby, around like what fields they you get access to just for training um and and playing and that, like when you have shitty fields, you're more likely to get hurt. You're more like there's all kinds of things that are literally just built into the decisions you know that are being made. But like when I in, when I was watching rexum, and then I think it maybe I don't know when it came up, but they're following the you know female players and they're pros, right, and so we all think outside of the like sports industry. When we hear someone's a professional, the assumption is, if you're a professional, you are getting paid to play and you're getting paid enough at least enough to live on, but probably getting paid way more than you should be. Getting paid right Like this is the Kobe Bryants and those folks that are like held up, as that's what it means to be a professional player. Everybody's making some pretty good money out there if they're professional. But to hear on watching Welcome to Wrexham and the owners of the team being like we legally cannot pay these players more. There's caps and the minute you start paying more, literally nobody in this division, no female women's player in the division that this team is playing in right now, is making a living. They all have to work somewhere else and you're just like what the hell is going on. Now we can point to capitalism and all that. It's more than capitalism. It's decisions. It's choices by those who are in power to decide what is an acceptable cap.
Speaker 2:These are policies, and I think I'm based in Portland, oregon, so the Portland Thorns are here and Timbers. It's a big, you know, it's a big football slash soccer community and the Thorns consistently bring in full crowds, Everybody's buying and all of the numbers that we've ever seen on the female soccer side in the US. So like people are way more stoked on the women's buying I mean when I and all of the numbers that we've ever seen on the female soccer side in the US. So like people are way more stoked on the women's teams. There's way you know. But but what were they getting paid until they really actually united? It came together like again starting to tap into the to May Day. And what does it mean for us to start organizing and make and push, push against power and demand something different.
Speaker 2:It's not enough to just point to capitalism, you know, especially I think it's true, and it's capitalism where the people who have benefited most historically continue to change and tweak and adjust the rules to make sure they are the ones that continue to grow and amass and are ultimately the people who are of most value, whether it's real on a spreadsheet or not. I mean, when we're talking about value, value is totally subjective. We can create a whole range of criteria for how we decide somebody is of value and we like to say, under a capitalist system, that that is the person who can produce the most. But we know it's not true, right? I mean, you just start to look at the amount of people. You know, when you look at the salaries of people across an organization, some of the people who are making the most money actually have the least direct value and, like amy and jenner are lawyers. So they know like billable hours is pretty damn important when it comes to some of this stuff. But, like so in the law firm, the people who are making the most money have almost zero billable hours because they're not doing any of the direct work which, in a system like ours, we say oh you, you worked hard, you grinded it out, now you get, do get lots of money without having to do that.
Speaker 2:But the reality is the way that our system functions. We need a certain portion of people to be unemployed, like, literally, we have to have 2-3% unemployment to be a healthy economy, based on economists, so we need to have in our population millions of people unemployed, absolutely have to. The minute we start getting below that, start throwing everything out of whack because suddenly workers have power and they're demanding more salaries and then, if they're, these are the things that are how our system is designed for things to be the way that they are and as individuals, just like Gabby you were talking about, like what happens to an individual when this is what we're getting fed, what we're getting told, what we're getting shown. Right, there's lots of ways to communicate somebody's worth, but to me we just keep going back to really ultimately, at least when we're thinking about basic income. Like you know, how do we help individuals themselves recognize their own value and that they deserve the dignity of having their basic needs covered, so that they don't experience what you're talking about, gabby, like the shame. There shouldn't be shame in the United States today in tapping into or having our government decide you're of value, because you are of this country, you deserve to have your basic needs met. It's a huge shift. It's a huge psychological shift and it's a huge shift on individuals when they no longer have that stress and don't have the stigma and the shame attached to helping alleviate that stress through whatever programs. It's like. It's kind of revolutionary on an individual level. You know on family level what happens, but then, like, imagine exploding that out to 360 million people. It it has a lot of potential to be, you know, transformative for the next generation. You know this is where I mean for me I just turned 50 this year Like what if I'm not helping do that? What the hell am I here for? Right, if I'm not thinking about the kids that are being born now or the kids that are just becoming adults now?
Speaker 2:It's so funny, on my way from work to get home to then record this podcast, just to bring in one more example from another industry. I was listening to a podcast, a very well-known actor, and he brought up the myth of meritocracy and how all of these aspiring actors, creators, artists go to LA with these big hopes and dreams and people are telling them if they work hard enough, if they put in the work, they are going to be the 1% of the 1% of people that make it really big. And this actor said that's bullshit, it's complete bullshit and part of my fame is luck, like pure luck. I have friends that are out in LA that have been struggling for years just trying to get by, trying to make their dreams come true, because they are told that if they just work hard enough then they will make it. So I mean just just pulling from another industry, the entertainment industry, where this exists. It exists everywhere and the flip side of that that is most you know.
Speaker 2:That makes me the most angry. If there's a way to even categorize it, is that what happens to the individual, to us. When we hear that is self-blame, it's really hard. I'm sure there's all kinds of studies that are being done around this, but when we do think about, like gen z right now, right, we have a group. We have a group of of kids, late teens and early 20s, young people who have like some of the highest suicide rates, some highest self-harming rates, some of the highest mental health rates, mental health needs. We have like a sense of like hopelessness, all all these things. And there's a lot of right. We're humans and it's a society. There's lots of things Pandemic did not help and just being isolated for many years and all those kinds of things. But we also, at the same time as those pieces being true, we also have the biggest wage gap that we've ever had in the history of humans, between those who have and those who have not. We just there's just a study that was released that last year that you know, the top 10 people generated more than, or not generated, but acquired more than a trillion dollars worth of wealth more than the entire country of sweden. So we're in.
Speaker 2:When we're thinking about like deserveness, what we're what, when you think about like the 1% of 1% in whatever industry, the reality for a lot of folks that are young now is like it's not attainable. I'm, I'm getting told this all the time and if I and for my own self preservation, I have to acknowledge that it's bullshit, because if I don't, then from birth I'm blaming myself, I'm down on myself for something that I actually, statistically, most of us cannot and will not ever attain. And the more that we believe this idea that we live in a meritocracy, it's deep. I mean the Protestant work ethic, ethic this is all tied to work value and, like you know, you're the, you're the. What you're supposed to do to be like helping out society and your family and all this stuff. But like the more that you start to see those like it's just weight on top of weight on top of weight of like you, you, you.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, it used to be that in the 70s that the um, that the wealthy were paying more than 70 percent in taxes, bring it back. This is the reality seven dollars and 25 cents an hour, while, like the, the wealthy have have are basically holding on to 50 percent more of their 40 to 50 percent more of their money. Not even to like point out that most of wealthy people don't even have to count most of their wealth as incomes. They don't have to pay taxes on it anyway.
Speaker 2:And what we hear and see when we have conversations with community members, I mean it brings me to tears. But when we're having like a gathering of community, I remember this grandpa stood up at an event we were having conversations about this and he stood up and he was basically crying and he was like I'm just realizing, like I don't think I deserve it. I don't think I deserve to have my basic needs met. I think my child does, I think my grandchild does, I think my neighbor does, I think all the people I love do, but I don't think I do and that's what we're like. That's heavy and that's a lot to, and it takes time and space and trust and heartfelt conversations for people to start to, you know, to start to unpack some of that and start to think that maybe there's a different way and maybe it doesn't have to be all on me, that it should be all on us together to change the system.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so interesting you bring that up, stacey because to me, like again, just like these direct parallels of that, like deserving, just like the mental health toll it takes of this, what the myth of meritocracy brings is a sense of undeservingness, is a sense of failure throughout it all. And like how I mean I see that within the workforce, right, like all the workers I've worked at, these women that are like I don't know like. I mean I see that within the workforce, right, like all the workers I've worked at, these women that are like I don't know, like. I just I just wanted a week off. Is that asking for too much? I'm like no, we just had a child. Like why are you, you know, like, but feeling that.
Speaker 3:But then seeing um, that and feeling that I feel like as a woman in sports too, like as a player, like you know Gabby was talking about not feel like being made to feel like I should feel lucky that I'm even able to play. I mean this is so small, but like in my hometown there was like some small hometown that football is everything right, and so there's the football stadium in the middle of the town with the lights and like soccer. We got to play on it as soccer players because of Title IX, because we were the only like female team and they had read equal access. So, like Title IX, yeah, you know like we got to play, but it was a, it was a constant like. You guys are lucky we're allowing you to like play on this field and and I feel like for so long the trajectory of women's sports had been you should just be lucky. We're giving you a space and you should just be lucky you have this opportunity and there's so much of that ingrained in us.
Speaker 3:And I think what's been amazing to witness is the change of that Like and the entire US Women's National Team pay for like, push for pay equity. For me was the like we are done, being told that we don't deserve this. We are being told it is because we haven't worked hard enough. We have worked, we have outperformed in every metric and it's not about us, it's about you all not giving us what we deserve. And I think to see that has been so inspirational Like.
Speaker 3:I was at the World Cup in France when they won and the whole, the whole stadium just started cheering equal pay and it was like they had just won a game, but what mattered was equal pay in this work of like taking this microcosm of sports and women's sports and showing that what's happening there is what's happening in our society and how, if we make change there, we can make change in these other places. And like I just think that's like the push for basic income to me is about being like I'm no longer as a person, as a society, going to be told that I'm not worthy and because I'm not making money right now in a system that's exploited me my entire life, and I think seeing that already playing out in the sports side has just been really, really great.
Speaker 2:I struggled so much with what you both touched on about just being grateful for the opportunity, and I always felt so guilty when I spoke negatively about my playing experience because it was always like, but I'm so grateful that I had this chance to go and play, because not a lot of people get to do that and it was a very cool experience, I would say, especially outside of the soccer piece, you know, getting to travel and be overseas, and I got my degree while, my master's degree while I was in England. So there is a lot that I was grateful for and I talk a lot about how two things can exist right, you can be grateful but you can also be pissed off and upset and frustrated. Yeah, that is something I still struggle with and I still feel guilty, like this sense of guilt, a lot of times when I speak negatively about my experience, because I don't want to downplay all the people that did like genuinely really support me through those times, especially, you know, my parents, people that literally housed me, fed me when I couldn't afford a place to live. I am extremely grateful. I mean, some of what you're also touching on is such an important part of like how we this idea that we could, that two things can be true, like it's the yes and you know, kind of the improv, like yes and yes and better yes and what could we change right, like mean, this is, this is.
Speaker 2:But I do think that there's that there's just also an opportunity for us to be thinking about how do we make sure that there is a system in place that doesn't rely so heavily on networks of social capital, because you know, this actually is how systems of oppression function. The gaps are made up by the community. You know who loves those people, or you know, and so it makes it so that the gaps seem like they're not as big as they are, that they're not as significant. Right, like the fact that you had loved ones and family and sometimes strangers in another country. They're like, well, you, you know we would love to board you and support your. You know your kind of path as a, as an athlete. When we talk about systems change, we talk about how do we make sure that a system is in place so that everybody can get what gabby got, even if they don't have a family that has those up. You know those pieces, though that social capital and kind of luck and privilege played out a certain way for you. How do we like reduce the amount of luck and privilege and social capital? That's necessary as we're raising things up for everybody, you know and I think that's really kind of at the heart of it so that nobody gets left behind because they don't have some of those additional components in place time that our community has run a national narrative change campaign.
Speaker 2:So some of this is just learning the process together, learning what works as kind of like a first go right. We keep calling it like the first pancake. When you put the pancake batter in the pan the first time, usually the first one turns out maybe a little funky, but now you know how to adjust right. I don't think this was anything funky about this campaign, but we're learning a ton and we're learning one. We're learning what's resonating and what's kind of interesting and sticky for people Like ooh, I want to dig a little bit more into that because you know we're focused on young people for this.
Speaker 2:I mean, our real goal and hope right now is to engage more folks in the conversation and to invite those folks to add their name to a sign-on letter saying they believe in basic income. Add their name to a sign-up to just start to learn more and make sure that they're kind of keeping up with and learning what the community is about and learning a little bit more about how does meritocracy actually function. We've gotten a chance to get really deep into things here, which is amazing, and so in some ways it's like how do we scratch people's like interest just enough that we can invite them to listen to this podcast, to read a little bit more, and then, if they're feeling motivated to get involved, they have a really quick and easy way to kind of channel into the work that's happening out there. Any final thoughts from any of you?
Speaker 3:I think my final thought is I just can't wait to see both the impact of this campaign, of starting to bring up these questions for people, because I think what we unearthed today is that we all internally feel this myth of meritocracy right. Like we feel it, we just don't have the words for it. So what is it going to look like when more of us get the words and start challenging it straight on? And I think, when I think about that in the context of like sports generally and women's sports, I'm like I think about like both the involvement of the women's sports game and how they're going to and should, change the system. Right, how are they going to do it differently?
Speaker 3:So maybe we can, as Stacey said, really lower how much privilege and luck and your access to social capitalism like plays into your success within women's sports and I'm particularly interested in like the college athletics and I'll roam to and how much that is going to shake up the system. Yeah, it's like a workers rights attorney, it's just like, ah so, and like a sports fan and in the sports equity phase, I'm just like, oh my. God.
Speaker 3:So I think those are just my only thoughts, like I'm just excited about the continuing conversations and how this can really play out in so many aspects and how athletes have such an important space in this game.
Speaker 4:I mean plus one, of course, to Jenna and I would say it's not you, it's the system is a good sort of, I think, tldr for this conversation. And also, you know a lot of folks have been alluding to it, but I think part of the system, as it is part of how it operates, is to separate us and isolate us from each other. And, like I'm thinking, I can't stop thinking about that grandfather right, like he was feeling like he didn't deserve it, but he knew that all the people that he loved did so. If we can lean into community and identify community, then we can have people telling us no, you do deserve it, you absolutely deserve it, even when everything has been telling us for our entire lives that we don't. And I'm really excited about the community around sports and what sports, and in particular women's sports, can do to push the needle forward. What can sports, women's sports in particular, do to move us closer to a world that has prosperity for all? So I'm just excited to see what the future brings in that regard. Awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think the last thing I would just want to say is, gabby, you mentioned at the top of the conversation that there's a range of different athletes female athletes that are part of this campaign and the first video dropped just a few minutes ago, excited to elevate the stories and experiences of female athletes through this process. I'm super hopeful even if this comes out, you know, a couple weeks from now like having links to and being able to give love to people who are willing to tell their stories. I do just also want to acknowledge, gabby, I just really appreciate you sharing some of your experiences as a professional athlete and some of your experiences around the shame of not feeling like. You know, the shame that is associated with saying I don't have enough right now and I need some help. I need some kind of support in this moment.
Speaker 2:Like those are not easy things often to share and you know, hear as well as some of the stories that are part of this campaign from female athletes that are participating are in that same vein. They're very personal, they're very, very real and also pretty universal. I think so like they both are specific but also have a lot of shared context for all of us as we're moving through this crazy time together. Just want to get a shout out to all and make sure we get love to the folks who are telling these amazing stories and sharing their experiences. Yes, and I will provide links to everything all of the Instagram handles of the other influencers that are a part of this campaign but is there anything specifically you guys want to shout out right now as far as links who they can follow, if people listening to this are interested in learning more, finding out more?
Speaker 3:You can follow Broad Consultants at Broad Consultants on Instagram. Check out our website, you know, and we're just getting started. So really, you know, looking for anyone who is interested in this and, you know, hopefully we'll have more opportunity to really do more work like this.
Speaker 2:We've got 60,000 people across the country that are members and kind of part of this community, and so if folks are interested and curious, it's really easy. On our website, at the very bottom of the main page is a place to just sign up, just to get the newsletter. We only do it once a week. It's just an opportunity to share information. We never fundraise. You're never going to get asked for money. It's literally just like what's going on in our community and here's some opportunities.
Speaker 2:There might be something happening in your city, in your state, or a cool movie to watch or something that just is a way to plug in and learn a little bit more. So feel free to go there and maybe we'll see you out in the digital space somewhere, maybe even in person somewhere. This has genuinely been such an amazing conversation. What a great way to start season three of the podcast. I think a lot of what we talked about today will probably inform more of what we talk about throughout the rest of season three, so I'm just very thankful. I feel very lucky to have met you all and be a part of this and be included in this, and I'm also very excited to see the impact that this makes.
Speaker 1:Well, you guys, as always, thanks for tuning in and remember human first athlete second, See ya.
