Steph Curry promotes gender equality in moving Players' Tribune essay
Women’s equality is an issue close to two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry’s heart.
Curry has two daughters – Riley and Ryan – who he says want to follow in his footsteps, and he wants to make sure they have the means to do so. He adds that his newborn son, Canon, will have advantages “his sisters can only dream of.”
In his Players’ Tribune essay in honor of Women’s Equality Day Sunday, he described how and why the gender opportunity gap has become an important issue in his life.
Growing up, I was lucky to be raised by my mom, Sonya — an incredible and fiercely principled woman who had the courage and vision to open her own school, the Christian Montessori School of Lake Norman. And for the last seven years, I’ve been lucky to be married to another incredible and fiercely principled woman, in Ayesha — who is both a successful business owner and the most amazing mother to our three kids. So for my whole life, really, I feel like I’ve been receiving this education on what it means to be a woman in America.
Riley and Ryan are growing up so fast. And with Ayesha and I suddenly seeing things through the eyes of these daughters of ours, who we brought into this world, and now are raising to live in this world … you know, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the idea of women’s equality has become a little more personal for me, lately, and a little more real.
In addition to caring about his own family, Curry hosted a girls basketball camp earlier in the summer, and wants people to stop thinking of basketball as a men’s sport that women sometimes play. According to Curry, it’s all just basketball.
But I think it was also something more than that. I think it was also the sort of thing that can help to shift people’s perspectives. So that when someone sees an NBA player is hosting a camp, now, you know — maybe they won’t automatically assume it’s for boys. And so eventually we can get to a place where the women’s game, it isn’t “women’s basketball.” It’s just basketball. Played by women, and celebrated by everyone.
One thing we’ve always maintained about our camp, is that we want it to be world class. And in 2018? Here’s the truth: You’re not world class if you’re not actively about inclusion.
Finally, he goes on to specifically call out the pay gap, urging on readers to make a difference, regardless of political affiliation.
Let’s work to close the opportunity gap. Let’s work to close the pay gap.
And let’s work together on this.
I mean, “women deserve equality” — that’s not politics, right?
That’s not something that people are actually disagreeing on, is it?
It can’t be.
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