Breanna Stewart Used Her ESPY Moment to Speak Out Against Inequality

The 2016 ESPY winners for Best Male Athlete and Best Female Athlete were basketball players LeBron James and Breanna Stewart. Chances are, you’ve heard of James a couple thousand times but might have had to Google that second name. For two accomplished athletes, it’s clear who is more famous—and Stewart was quick to point out this difference.

“Now that I’m in the WNBA, playing with other amazing female athletes, I’m trying to understand why we, as professional female athletes, don’t receive anywhere near the fame,” Stewart said upon accepting the award. “This has to change. I know that everyone in this room loves and supports women and girls in sports and wants to be a part of that change, right?”

Stewart isn’t the first athlete to bring up this discrepancy. In an interview with Motto, fellow WNBA player Elena Delle Donne spoke out about the sexism she’s seen in her career. “When [interviewers] ask if we have a certain sponsorship, they then ask, ‘Is it because you’re pretty?’ And that’s something that I don’t think men get,” Delle Donne told Motto. “And that’s what’s so frustrating. Instead of talking about our skill level on the court, they want to talk about that. So that’s the part that is a little tough and I hope to see change.”

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Soccer athletes are also speaking up, most recently with the United States Women’s National Team’s “#EqualPlayEqualPay” campaign, which demanded that female athletes make what their male counterparts do. “We need to narrow the gender pay gap because it sends a strong message,” athlete Abby Wambach wrote on Motto.