On July 10, American women’s soccer team was honored with the key to the city at their World Cup Victory Parade held in New York. These brilliant ladies are inspiring an entire generation of female athletes and no one is more outspoken and inspirational than Co-Captain Megan Rapinoe.
Rapinoe’s speech highlighted the tremendous effort put in by the support, technical and medical staff and even the chef to make their victory possible. Her commendation for her ‘bad-ass’ team’s ‘resilience’ truly makes you believe in the power of teamwork. Rapinoe’s speech about her teammates is a picture-perfect image of equality.
“We got pink hair and purple hair. We got tattoos and dreadlocks. We got white girls and black girls and everything in between. We got straight girls and gay girls” she says.Megan Rapinoe
Haters Will Hate, No Matter What
Despite Rapinoe and her teams’ victory against Netherlands and the team’s hard pitch for serious issues like equal pay, the entire focus of the speech seemed to rest on her comment about New York City being the “mother-fucking best.”
It is genuinely disheartening to see trolls shift focus from the team’s appeal for equal pay, to Rapinoe’s cursing in her speech .
Rapinoe’s line “I deserve this” with the trophy hoisted on her leg is truly a prime example of women exuding confidence. Unfortunately, trolls have already gotten to work sprouting toxic and homophobic messages. Fans, however, have come forward to support their idol.
Rapinoe has consistently proven that she is not afraid to speak her mind and defend what is right. In an interview with CNN, Rapinoe addressed President Donald Trump and his campaign slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ saying
Your message is excluding people. You’re excluding me. You’re excluding people that look like me. You’re excluding people of colour. You’re excluding... Americans that maybe support you.”Megan Rapinoe in an interview with CNN
Megan Rapinoe is truly a woman to admire and we just cannot get enough of her. Her speech might even make you feel that she’s running for office.
Sadly, for all of us, she has no such plans as she’s“too busy” winning gold for the country. Thankfully, inspirational women are not in short supply.
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