In the United States, we like to take pride in the achievements we have made thus far regarding social justice. Unfortunately, our pride has caused us to grow complacent and dull. Although we have come a long way, there is still much work to be done. Lately, the public has grown apathetic and uninvolved. The most obvious sign of this is in our highly polarized political system, but it is showing up in other areas as well.

For example, the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. This was over 50 years ago. The Act was designed to prevent "[discrimination] on the basis of sex." Apparently, after the act was passed, we collectively fell asleep.

On March 29, the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team filed a suit against the U.S. Soccer Federation with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The WNST has been repeatedly proven themselves as elite athletes and still continue to be paid significantly less than their male counterparts. The worst part is that this is not the first time that the WNST has addressed its grievances with the U.S. Soccer Federation. Unfortunately, WNST is forced to resort to EEOC to correct something that was supposed to be “resolved” in 1963.

Graphic by Vanessa Dennis

The WNST has won the World Cup three times and continue to take home gold in the Olympics. The victory in the 2015 World Cup was the most-watched soccer game in history with over 26 million views. Despite earning their third World Cup, "women earned four times less than the men while performing demonstrably better," while the men's team hasn't advanced past the quarterfinals since 1930.

We cannot allow our pride to allow us to grow complacent in our progress. There are still social injustices that happen on a daily basis. They were not “fixed” in the 60s with the Civil Rights Movement. We need to stay vigilant, otherwise all the progress we pride ourselves on will unwind.