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Female athletes have an Ally — a mascot for their cause — in the fight for equity


The important battle for pay equity in sports has taken its fight to an aspect of games that is near and dear to the hearts of so many fans.

Mascots.

Fast & Female, a program established to keep the issue of pay disparity in a sharp focus for all fans, has unveiled “Ally,” a sports mascot dedicated not to a team but to a cause.

It is being used to point out that some professional sports team mascots make up to three times the annual salary of the top paid players in the WNBA, a fact that should resonate this weekend with the league’s first exhibition game in Toronto on Saturday between the Minnesota Lynx and Chicago Sky.

“It’s a super important message and a conversation that’s popular right now but definitely one that is an overdue conversation,” said Canadian soccer star Janine Beckie, a spokeswoman for the campaign. “A campaign like this to highlight this kind of topic and keep the conversation in the flow of the media and the sports media is definitely important.”

The campaign, the brainchild of the Canadian firm Hypepr, will raise funds through merchandise sale at the Fast & Female website — all proceeds go to the program — and keep the battle for pay equity in the forefront.

“There’s so much power in the media and it’s not just TV and the radio and the news, it’s social media and sporting events (like) the WNBA game this weekend that’s the first on Canadian soil, such an incredible opportunity to speak about this topic and get the conversation going,” Beckie said.

Laeticia Amihere, the WNBA rookie from Mississauga, is another spokesperson for the group, a young athlete who knows the power of getting a message out as far and as wide as possible.

“It’s definitely an ongoing struggle that women in general are fighting against, we all try to do our part in trying to help the situation, just trying to be more vocal about pay equity,” she said. “With this new age in social media, we have a new platform that was not readily available a couple of years back (with) content that’s easy to digest. The more you’re able to push the right narrative, the message we’re trying to bring across is going to be received well.”

Beckie, no stranger to the difficult battle that rages for financial equity through her illustrious career with the Canadian soccer team, sees sports as part of a bigger picture that needs to become more clear. Games are a first step.

“For me, the conversation is about more than that,” she said. “That falls into a line of equal opportunity, equal resources, making sure that females, not just in sports but in the working world are getting the same opportunities as their male counterparts.

“Getting paid the same amount for doing the same work and, to me at least, that concept seems pretty clear but for some people it’s not as clear. That’s part of change: education. And I think that’s an important feature of this campaign as well.”

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