140 years ago, imagine being in bondage, oppressed, maybe even tortured; to have to go about your life constantly under the watch of someone else; to be bruised and beaten and broken—all because of the color of your skin. Imagine being someone who was free, but oppressed in other ways; to be unable to work the same way that a man was no matter how smart you were, to be forced into doing what “ladies” do; to be stepped over and disregarded—all because of the gender you were born as. These qualities are just some of the degrading aspects of inequality. These aspects have not completely disappeared in the modern day; they are just not as blunt as before. Equality comes with progress and progress takes time. Therefore, despite many efforts for and progress regarding equality in contemporary America, inequality still cuts across bringing with it issues of wage inequality and continued racial inequality.
Inequality in the workplace particularly in wages is still largely prominent today in contemporary America. Minorities such as women and African Americans face this issue head-on every day they step into the office or receive a paycheck for way less money despite factors such as equal work. This inequality is very prominent in the battle of equal pay for equal play with athletes. In an article entitled “Equal Pay for Equal Play?” it states, “Yet if the four women had pooled the $75,000 they each received from the U.S. Soccer Federation for winning, it still wouldn’t equal the