CLOSING THE GAP: PAY EQUITY & PAYING IT FORWARD

CLOSING THE GAP: PAY EQUITY & PAYING IT FORWARD

Speakers Include: Jennifer Siebel Newsom & Tobin Heath

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the First Partner of California and Tobin Heath, Co-Founder of RE-INC discuss the issues around the fight for gender equity and equal pay, particularly highlighted through the example of the US Women's National Soccer Team's battle for fair compensation. The conversation emphasizes the importance of teamwork, allyship, and collective action in addressing systemic issues like the gender pay gap and patriarchal structures. The speakers discuss the need to build new, inclusive structures, such as media platforms like RE-INC, to better represent and empower women in sports and beyond. They also touch upon broader societal issues and the role of sports in driving progress towards gender equity. Overall, the discussion underscores the significance of leveraging platforms like sports to advocate for social change and create a more equitable future.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: Good morning, everyone. As Christie mentioned-- thank you, Christie, gosh, it's so great to reconnect-- fighting for equal pay and equity for women and all individuals is one of the most critical battles of our time and one that I am proud and impassioned to battle.

One of the most prominent examples of this gap is women's sports. Despite filling stadiums, breaking viewing records, and winning multiple World Cups, the US Women's National Soccer team found themselves not just fighting opponents on the field, but battling some pretty big adversaries off the field in the fight for gender equity and equal pay. Let's have a look.

- That's it. US wins it, fourth World Cup.

- The US Women's National Soccer team now winning the World Cup four times.

- People pay. People pay.

- I thought the whole stadium would be chanting USA. The whole stadium was chanting equal pay. It's a

- Chant now linked forever to the 2019 US Women's soccer team. On the heels of their World Cup victory in France, the players are using their fame and platform to promote equal pay not just for athletes, but for all working women.

- They made their point on and off the field, putting the issue of pay equality front and center.

- Those demands now met with an historic agreement.

- It moved me deeply. It instilled in me the belief that women's sports isn't just about sports. Women's sports is the most beautiful, most powerful vehicle for progress and equity.

- It's us as athletes in women's sports carrying a torch liberated from so many of the societal and gender roles. It's really about the amazing fight that we're all in together, and carrying that torch, and proudly passing it on.

- We have this incredible vehicle of sport that we've been given to continue the progress and the change that we want to see in the world. We brick by brick have been laying the foundation for our own dreams. And when I think of Re-Inc, we're continuing to lay that foundation.

The fighting against is so critical to progress. But what if we could build something to fight for something? And that was the creation of Re. We were four player founders, four women, four queer women. And the act of us starting the company was a revolution. Re-Inc, its reimagining the incorporated.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: Right? Well done. It is my pleasure to introduce two-time world champion and co-founder of Re-Inc, Tobin Heath.

[APPLAUSE]

Welcome. All right, Tobin, in March of 2019, you and members of the US Women's National Team sued the US Soccer Federation for gender discrimination and unequal pay, causing a major ripple effect that we are still fighting today. Tell us about that.

TOBIN HEATH: OK, I will. But before we get into it, we should recognize that you also played soccer--

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: Oh, OK.

TOBIN HEATH: --for Stanford. So I was wondering--

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: No, it's not about me.

TOBIN HEATH: --Jennifer, is, what was the name, what was your athlete name?

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: My athlete name? Well, I was Seibel. They just called me Seibel. Well, anyway, I played at Stanford. And I'm not about--

TOBIN HEATH: OK, let's do this.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, Jenny Siebel. No, super cool. But you're just a legend. I want to talk to you.

TOBIN HEATH: See? I really cut through here.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: But it's actually really cool because sports-- we're going to get into that later. You, you are our rock star here. Tell us about this whole journey that you've been on.

TOBIN HEATH: Well, I don't recommend suing your employee and playing for them at the same time.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: No.

TOBIN HEATH: I think that could be one of the greatest lessons. It made for some awkward interactions in the meal room and in passing, like, hey. But look, this was an incredible honor. I was fortunate enough. I've played for the US Women's National team since I was a kid. I've been a part of the system.

I was very young when I first started with the first team, just a teenager. And I remember each kind of cycle of our collective bargaining agreements, which is where we fight for our worth, or at least we tried to. I remember being part of these rooms, where each time, obviously, we were like, here, this is what you're going to get paid. And we were like, wow, that's nowhere near our worth.

And we would be collectively in this room together. And we would be like, we're going to strike. That's kind of the only leverage we knew we had. But that would obviously, take away from us doing the playing, which was our dream, and our goals, and our ambition. So each four years, we would get the bravado of the US Women's National team. And we'd say, we're going to strike.

And we'd all be pumped up about it. And essentially, we would settle for what was inflation. It was very discouraging. But at the same time, these were conversations that led to the biggest decision, which was then to sue our employee. But this didn't happen overnight.

And I think for most of you, this was layered on frustrations and meetings, where we were constantly battling for our worth until what I would call the perfect storm happened.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: I think we should have done the strike for you, like the walkout, like the women in Iceland. Maybe that's planting a seed here for all of us in the room. I'm going to get in trouble. Sorry about that. OK, so one of the reasons I actually took the title, first partner, rather than first lady was to center the importance and strength of partnership.

You play a team sport. You know this strength well. Why did you all take on this fight as a team, as a collective? I mean, it's obvious. But how did it help?

TOBIN HEATH: Yeah, I mean, I think it was the power of the team that made this possible and especially this specific group of women. There's this thing that happens, where before a world championship-- and when I say world championship, we're referring to the Olympics and the World Cup. Before this happens, it's a dog fight. We're talking about the best, well, the most competitive sport for women in this country, for girls in this country is soccer.

And it's a dog fight to even get to practice on the US Women's National Team. And what happens though is right when a world championship roster is announced, you go from these individuals that are literally trying to kill each other for a roster spot to a team. And this collective group had been a team for a while. It was a team that lost in the 2011 final.

Everyone forgets that because you only remember the winning. It was the same group that won 2015, and the same group that won 2019. So this was a team. This was a collective group of women that knew each other's strengths extremely well.

And what we did was we knew each other's strengths both on and off the field. And with our pay equity lawsuit, we made sure we were putting each other in positions of strength. We had been doing this forever on the field. Not everyone can be the person out in front of the camera. Not every person should be making the decisions behind the scenes, doing the creative things.

We all knew each other's super powers. And really that really transformed this into a very powerful fight because we put each other in positions to seed in our pay equity lawsuit, not as soccer players, but truly as people fighting for change.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: So sports and the corporate world have many parallels. I recently learned at a women in sports event in Vegas that 94% of women in the C-suite played competitive sports at some point in their life. And 52% of women in the C-suite played college sports. I think that's interesting.

TOBIN HEATH: Oh, my gosh, it's incredible.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: Right? But yet, many women in corporate America are afraid to speak up. So what's your advice to them about how to push past that fear and find strength in allyship and the sisterhood?

TOBIN HEATH: Yeah, I mean, it shows that sports give women incredible tools, tools that translate then to other fields that they go into. I spoke to you that there's something brewing in the women's sports world that we call the women's sports mafia. And it really is these women that are in C-suite positions, in leadership positions, decision making positions that have that understanding of sports, that understanding of teamwork, of camaraderie.

And we call it the women's sports mafia because they've all kind of recognized this vehicle of sports, how they can be useful to it. And that's what I would say is find your team. For us as women, we've been taught this idea of scarcity because for most women, there's only one seat at the table for you at the top, right?

So you had to fight to get there. And you're really proud. You're this one person that got that there, what an incredible honor. But there's so much scarcity at the top. And that's what we're kind of taught to believe about these positions, that there's scarcity in it.

And when I look out into this room I see abundance because what we do is we take that one seat and we turn it into two seats, into three seats. And then we bring it together all here. And there is so much power in the collective.

And I don't know many jobs that are gendered like the US Women's National Team, where you get 23 strong, apologetic, confident women coming together. We don't suffer from these same things because that's our table. It's 23 women.

And I think it's given us an incredible place of where we're almost living in the future that we're trying to create for others are these tables that look like this. And I would be very remiss if I didn't share this here on this stage is when we were talking about pay equity as a group, it was an issue that affected all of us.

We were 23 women. We all wanted to get paid our worth. But the thing that I want to really celebrate, and I hope that if we have fans of the US Women's National Team in this room is actually--

[APPLAUSE]

--is actually something that maybe not every woman on this team, which is celebrating that this right now is the most diverse team, the US Women's National Team, has ever seen. We need to talk about racial equality, especially in sports. And right now, this is something that should be celebrated, lifted on these platforms of the same way and the same importance because we're living in a place, where not only are there 23 women. But there's 23 diverse, powerful women at this table. And that has to be celebrated.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: I love that. That's great.

[APPLAUSE]

So the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 257 years to close the gender pay gap, 257 more years. Come on. However, the gender pay gap is just one part of a larger systemic issue that includes a patriarchal imbalance and structure, which is holding us back in a myriad of ways. Can you talk about the larger issue and how we can reimagine and reinvent spaces, like corporate America, that were not designed for and by women?

TOBIN HEATH: Yeah, absolutely. At our highest level, we had this big thing called the World Cup this past summer. And there was a celebration because-- yeah, that thing. There was a celebration because the women were going to be making more money this time around. Yay. Awesome.

But what wasn't talked about enough is the gender pay gap is getting bigger.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: Yeah.

TOBIN HEATH: So as much as we're making more, our male counterparts are making way more, which is a problem. So the women were making $0.25 to the $1 of their men counterparts in the World Cup. Yeah, and it can be a extremely, extremely discouraging at times. And like you said, 200 years we're not even going to see it.

But to build structures, this is what I want to say, is we would walk into these rooms. And our president, I'm not going to name names, not that president, but our US Soccer president at the time, would say something like, the market realities are such that you are not deserving of being paid what you think you are worth.

Why are the market realities are of such? What comes first, investment or revenue?

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: That's right.

TOBIN HEATH: Because women-- and we've spoken about this. Women only receive money on past performances. But men receive money on potential. So when we talk about the women's sports world--

[APPLAUSE]

--when we talk about this new sports house that's being designed-- I mean, I'm not going to gender it because we're greater than gender as women's sports-- we talk about creating new revenue streams. Let's go out and build it. If some structure is not going to fit us, let's go out and build a new structure because we believe in a diverse and equitable world because that is a world that is better for everyone, not just for us as women, for everyone.

[APPLAUSE]

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: The state of California is leading the charge from a state level on pay equity with our equal pay pledge and other initiatives, much in the same way your team did in sports. Can you talk about what's next in terms of equal pay for you all, but also about Re-Inc and your approach in our fight for gender equity?

TOBIN HEATH: Yeah, I mean, there's so many ways you can kind of slice it. And I think everyone here is going at it from their passions and their perspectives to push the needle. I think it's funny that while we were kind of like-- everybody talks about effort, like blood, sweat, tears. We were quite literally putting the ball in the back of the net for pay equity, which is kind of funny.

But for what's next, I'm passionate about building new structures that look and feel like us with our company, Re-Inc, This past summer we launched a media division. Traditional media hasn't really made space for women's sports. And look, we have the likes of the NFL and the NBA fighting for market share in this sport structure in traditional media.

And I'm not really interested in fighting in these sandboxes. I think it will take more than 270 years if we try to play in the same sandbox.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: I think you're right.

TOBIN HEATH: So how can we build these new structures and actually make them feel more like us? Because I think those are more effective structures. I mean, look, if sports could redo the playbook, if they had the opportunity of women's sports right now, they absolutely would. Men's sports is deeply rooted on structures that we're honestly not very proud of, where women's sports is progressive.

It's forward thinking. It's inclusive. It's powerful. I honestly think women's sports is the future of all sports.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: I love that. That's awesome.

TOBIN HEATH: Yeah. And where we're now playing our part is we started Re-Media to reimagine the way women are seen and experience in sports because while we were doing the sports, we were seeing how other people were representing us. And as an athlete, you can only change so much at once, right? As an athlete, we'd just be frustrated with it because it didn't sound like us. It didn't look like us. It didn't feel like us.

So we saw a unique opportunity this summer with the World Cup having not played it and now a World Cup for over-- well, that was my first World Cup I hadn't played in for over a decade. And I saw a unique opportunity to take a frustration and turn it into an opportunity. And that was Re-Media.

We hit it off with the recap show. And it was all around this idea of gal culture, which people have kind of coined the antidote to bro culture. We've all adopted or opted into this culture of sports that actually isn't representative of us as women at all. And for the first time, we were able to actually speak about our culture, show our culture.

And it's powerful because it isn't the sports, right? It's conversations around these tables this whole time. It's what unites us all. And using the vehicle of sport for the conversations that really matter, like this one, like women's health, which we could get into a whole-- that's next. So many different topics that we can explore and we can highlight about our culture that makes it unique.

And that's gal culture. You're all a part of the gals.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: If you can see it, you can be it. Thank you for being it. Thank you for leading the charge. Thank you for calling on all of us to partner with you, to support you. I do believe that women in sports is the future of gender equity. I really do.

I think we all need to invest in you guys. Thank you.

TOBIN HEATH: Thank you.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: You're remarkable.

TOBIN HEATH: You're remarkable.

JENNIFER SEIBEL NEWSOM: Good luck. We're so glad. Thanks, everyone.

TOBIN HEATH: Thank you.

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