User:Kanagawar/Abby Wambach

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Gender, Representation, and Culture

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Abby Wambach is a female activist for other women in athletics who has created her own non-profit organization for women, children, and families who are struggling to receive every day resources. Regarding the gender pay gap in professional athletics, Abby Wambach has been advocating for equal pay. In the beginning of her career she was paid $1,000. At that time, she believed that was a lot of money to be paid by sponsors to be wearing their products. She quickly realized that male athletes were getting paid millions of dollars to play (Selby, 2018). “This isn’t just a female athlete’s story. This is every single woman’s story on planet Earth,” Wambach said at the panel, part of the summit presented by P&G and #SeeHer, an initiative to improve the accurate portrayal of women and girls in advertising and entertainment in the US (Selby, 2018). She fought for changing the narrative that has been placed onto women in athletics. For Wambach it wasn't just talking about change, it was about making that change a reality. Bringing more attention to how popular women's sports really are and how these athletes put in as much time as men's athletics even though they are being paid significantly less. She has even written a book about her experiences called, "Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game". In this book, she insists that women must let go of old rules of leadership that neither include or serve them. She's created a new set of Wolfpack rules to help women unleash their individual power, unite with their Wolfpack, and change the landscape of their lives and world, (Kojo for kids: Soccer star Abby Wambach).

Wambach first for the United States Women's National Team in 2001. The Washington Freedom selected her as the second overall pick in the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) draft the following year, and she became Mia Hamm's teammate. In 2003, she and Hamm combined for 66 points as the Freedom won the WUSA championship. Wambach made nine starts for the USWNT that year, including all five of the USWNT's matches at the FIFA Women's World Cup, where they finished third. She was selected Female Athlete of the Year for the United States Soccer Federation in 2004, 2007, 2010, 2011, and 2013. Wambach married Sarah Huffman, her longtime partner and teammate on the newly founded National Women's Soccer League's Western New York Flash, in 2013. However, the pair divorced in 2016. Wambach released her memoir Forward later that year, in which she recounted her battles with alcohol and prescription drugs. She married novelist and blogger Glennon Doyle in 2017. Wambach went on to write Wolfpack: How to Unite, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game (2019), which was based on her 2018 Barnard College graduating speech.