Imagine this.
You’re Sedona Prince, a ball player for
Oregon. You’re at the top of your game, gearing up to play for the
NCAA championships. You walk into the tournament’s weight room, ready to train. There are two gyms to use, depending on your gender. For the men? A nice, full gym. But what’s that, over there? The women’s “gym”: a stack of dumbbells. Believe it or not, the year is not 1960. It’s 2021.
If you didn’t hear, that actually happened. Sedona shared a video exposing the weight room discrepancies at the 2021
NCAA championships, starting off a huge backlash about gender inequality in the NCAA. And now
basketball is taking small steps to fix things. The NCAA’s first step? The weight room issue. A small step, but a step in the right direction.
Later, bigger steps came. The March Madness branding is finally being used for both women’s and men’s tournaments (yes!). The women’s tournament now has 68 teams, equal to the men’s side. Officials are now receiving equal pay. More money, more staff, more support were added. And, (hell yeah!), players from both genders now receive the same SWAG bags. They’re still small steps, but being a woman means taking any small step you can to keep breaking barriers – barriers we still can’t believe are still around.
And
Vintage wants to support that momentum in any way we can. So,
Vintage Brand Athletes is launching a new campaign: Breaking Barriers. We want to bring awareness to the discrepancies between men’s and women’s sports, and empower female athletes to keep fighting. To show support, all of our female athletes have added a Breaking Barriers design to their store to help the cause. It’s a little step: but a step in the right direction, on this journey that we all share.