Women’s History Month this year…and honestly, last year, too…has been bleak. Google searches for it are at a five-year low. Media coverage is scant, and companies are gun shy to promote any kind of gathering or initiative that even hints at gender. When the federal government is suing Coca-Cola for sex-based discrimination because they allowed a women’s networking event, can we pretend to be surprised? I’m not. I’m downright pissed off.
So imagine the shift in my mood when I read yesterday’s excellent Wall Street Journal’s reporting on how Claudia Goldin used her genius to help win historic raises for WNBA players…
The timing couldn’t be more poetic.
For those of you who don’t know, I have a massive girl crush on Claudia Goldin. I’ve also had the genuine honor of spending time with her (and her adorable golden retriever Pika) when I asked her to help me think through winning on child care policy. She is exactly the kind of generous, grounded woman leader we desperately need more of. So, when I saw yesterday’s headline, I was, again, not surprised.
For those of you who don’t know Claudia, she won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2023, the first woman ever to win it solo. Her groundbreaking work analyzed decades of disparate data to prove that the gender pay gap is not random and it is not going away on its own. It is built into how we structure work.
The devil is in the details, and Claudia is the exorcist to call.
When she won the Nobel, her phone and email blew up with offers and invitations. I’ll admit about a dozen were probably from me. She is said to have accepted only three. One of them was advising the Women’s National Basketball Players Association as they prepared to negotiate a new labor deal.
Claudia agreed, and she refused to be paid.
This month, that negotiation concluded with a nearly 400% raise for WNBA players. Starting this season, the average player salary will top $580,000, up from $118,000, which was literal pennies compared to the average NBA player’s $12 million. The WSJ reports this salary increase is possibly the biggest increase any union has ever negotiated.
How did Claudia do it? She went back to first principles. She analyzed roster data dating back to the founding of the league. One of her findings was that the typical player stays at the WNBA for an average of less than three years, before many benefits even kicked in. A system that delays compensation effectively denies it.
Throughout, she remained hyper-focused on a single question: what share of league revenue goes to players? As Claudia pointed out in her NYT guest essay from year, WNBA games were drawing about 77% of NBA viewership, but the average salary was less than 1% of the NBA’s. From the outside, the convoluted structure of the league and the existing culture surrounding women’s sports made the pay imbalance look natural, expected even. Her work exposed that imbalance was a choice.
You may recall the negotiations got quite public and quite heated, with players wearing “Pay us what you owe us” shirts, and the league downplaying the severity of the pay discrepancy.
Claudia’s response to the rising temperature was devastatingly cool: “it’s just math.”
That math has been telling us the same story about women’s work for a long time. The gap is consistent. It shows up across industries and across datasets. When you look closely, you find systems that reward certain kinds of labor and discount others everywhere.
In the WNBA, it showed up in how revenue was shared inside a structure that obscured what the women were actually generating. In the broader economy, it shows up in how we price flexibility, how we structure promotions, and how we fail spectacularly at supporting caregiving.
Different sectors. Same pattern.
The fight for paid leave and affordable child care is not different from the fight for sports pay equity. If we don’t address the structure, the outcome will never change.
We talk a lot about women supporting women. Claudia’s work is an example of what that actually looks like. She used her unique expertise to pull women through a door that she just got done prying open. More of that, please.
As we send off Women’s History Month, it’s understandable if you’re feeling demoralized right now. Honestly, some days even I can’t rise above the gloom. But then a woman like Claudia calmly laughs in the face of the farce, and I remember that the tools already exist and the heroes are already here.
It’s just math. And the numbers are on our side.
While you’re here…
My So-Called Midlife has been nominated for a Webby for the second year in a row! And what an honor, and we’re in such good company appearing next to our friend @Esther Perel. If you can spare 2 minutes to vote, we’d love your support! It’s easy and free. Click to cast your vote.
In case you missed it…
If there’s one thing you read this week, let it be this NYT guest essay from Craig Newmark.
Craig was a day 1 supporter of both Girls Who Code and Moms First. We owe so much to his kindness and generosity.
Billionaires: Take note!
Much needed read.
Inspiring article!