On Wednesday, Megan Rapinoe spoke to reporters and outlined her disappointment with Draymond Green over his recent takes on the pay gap between women's and men's sports. "It's really unfortunate, in the position he's in, having all of the resources that he has and the ability to have a much more educated opinion, that he just hasn't," she said.
Green hopped on Twitter on March 27, shortly after watching Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark match up in the NCAA tournament, and he addressed a dozen (unthreaded) tweets to a series of prominent players. Green correctly identified that those holding the purse strings are responsible for underpaying women, and that "these same companies that are telling women empowerment are not putting their money where their mouth is." He also pointed out that growing the WNBA necessarily will mean more media attention and care, though he steered himself astray when he got prescriptive and put the onus on the players to change the strategies of corporations and media companies. Green's thesis, such that we can ascribe one to a bunch of tweets, rests on an assumption that WNBA players and other women's sports stars have not already been raising their voices at the right people, which is way off. It's pretty wild for someone to come to the conclusion that female athletes are all talk and no action on matters such as these not long after the Atlanta Dream organized to get their bigot owner bounced from the WNBA.
A few days after receiving a good deal of pushback from those he tweeted towards, best summed up by the New York Liberty's Layshia Clarendon, Green doubled down (on both his point and the not paying attention bit) and said players were "doing themselves a disservice by just complaining" and "not laying out steps that they can take to change that."
"I'm really tired of seeing them complain about the lack of pay, b/c they're doing themselves a disservice by just complaining."
— Kylen Mills (@KylenMills) April 1, 2021
Today Draymond talked about his Tweets about women's sports that received criticism from athletes like @mPinoe & @Layshiac @kron4news #DubNation pic.twitter.com/7iUQ982jx9
Shortly after Green tweeted, Rapinoe pointed out that women have already been doing everything Green said they should be and that men bear responsibility for improving conditions. She expanded on her point yesterday after watching him reaffirm his takes:
"That's frustrating that's the take you have. You obviously showed your whole ass in not even understanding what we all talk about all the time -- WNBA players and us on the national team. Like what Sue said, you tagged the wrong people. You don't think we asked for more money? I mean, what are we screaming about? Nonstop!"We are getting obnoxious to ourselves, to be honest. And then two or three days later, to completely double down on it is really frustrating. We know all this, about all social movements and all people who are marginalized, whether it's by race or gender, religion, sexuality, whatever it is, it is not just their job to be the ones fighting oppression. We need all of the other people as well. So to have someone who does know what it is like to be oppressed, in many ways, to heap that all back on female players, or people who play female sports, it is just really disappointing."
ESPN
Green can go on pushing this line if he wants to, but at this point he's only demonstrating how little attention he's been paying to the the same issues he now feels the need to hold court on.
