When asked about the ‘99ers, as they’re known, at U.S. Soccer media day last month, forward Alex Morgan simply replied: “Now it’s our turn to make our mark.”

Indeed, twenty years after the 1999 tournament, the U.S. Women’s National Team is again seeking both a World Cup title and a massive shift in the perception of a woman’s worth in sports. Moreover, women athletes in other sports are hoping Team USA’s success will mean more power for them in their own labor organizing efforts.

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In March, U.S. players filed a class action lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) for gender-based discrimination. The lawsuit highlights inequities in travel conditions, promotion of games, staffing, and support and development. All are persistent despite improvements that came with a 2017 collective bargaining agreement and after a 2016 lawsuit.

The latest lawsuit states that the U.S. women were offered $40,000 less for making the 2015 World Cup roster than men were offered for making a 2014 roster. That pay gap stretched to $53,750 by 2018. The lawsuit also states that the women’s team made 38 percent of the compensation of the men’s team from March 19, 2013 to December 31, 2016, despite bringing in more revenue than the men’s team in 2016.

The revenue surplus on the women’s side is impressive, but does represent an outlier, and is greatly driven by the 2015 World Cup and subsequent victory tour. Knowing that, players were willing to have compensation increase only in years they outearned the men’s team.

U.S. Soccer denied these claims in their defendant’s answers and affirmative defenses filed May 6, 2019, stating “the current CBA provides for player compensation that increases based on increased viewership, attendance and sponsorship revenue, in each case over and above their guaranteed salary and other benefits.” So 28 players, including 22 on the 2019 World Cup roster, are moving forward with their lawsuit.

When comparing the list of accomplishments for the women’s national team, which includes three World Cup titles, four Olympic gold medals, and being ranked number one in the world for 10 of the last 11 years, to that the men’s national team, which has no World Cup titles or Olympic medals and hasn’t even qualified for the Olympics since 1988, one can hardly say the pay scale is based on merit.

Other female professional athletes see the soccer team’s argument as air-tight. They also believe a win in court for the U.S. team will mean a win for them too.

“When you look at the women’s national soccer team, they are better than the men, they do generate more money, they do pack the stands,” said four-year WNBA veteran Imani McGee Stafford, a center for the Dallas Wings. “They check all of those boxes and the only conversation as to why they don’t get paid like the men is because they are women.”

WNBA players recently opted out of their collective bargaining agreement and hope to negotiate with the NBA for better travel regulations, higher salaries, and higher revenue splits. Sports economist David Berri noted the current agreement with the WNBA and the NBA, its overseer, offers players roughly 25 percent of WNBA revenue, while NBA players own a 50 percent split of revenue. Additionally, NBA player contracts protect players from playing within 24 hours of travel between time zones. WNBA contracts do not.

If the women’s soccer team is the standard for WNBA players, the 23-year-old women’s pro basketball league is the standard women’s hockey players hope to achieve, as professional women’s hockey has struggled for years to stay afloat. In the 2017 #BeBoldForChange boycott and the current #ForTheGame movement pushing for what they deem a viable league, women’s hockey players seek a North American league that can pay a livable wage and meet professional standards.

Women’s hockey players recently organized the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association, which consists of more than 200 hockey players, including all of Team Canada and Team USA, who say they will not sign contracts to play in North America. The #ForTheGame movement made waves on social media on May 2, one day after the closure of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL), which left the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL) as the only professional league left standing in North America.

“We are fortunate to be ambassadors of this beautiful game, and it is our responsibility to make sure the next generation of players have more opportunities than we had,” said USA Hockey forward and 2018 Olympic gold medalist Kendall Coyne Schofield in the PWHPA release. “It’s time to stand together and work to create a viable league that will allow us to enjoy the benefits of our hard work.” Coyne Schofield earned $7,000 playing for the 2019 NWHL champion Minnesota Whitecaps. Canadian 2018 silver medalist Sarah Nurse earned $2,000 playing for the Toronto Furies in the CWHL.

But is the fact that other women athletes are watching the women’s soccer team’s fight so closely added pressure or motivation?

“I think it’s both,” said midfielder Morgan Brian. “Seeing those other women’s professional teams follow along with our journey, I think it inspired us to continue to keep the conversation going and to push for more … that’s something that we’ve always had in our DNA and want to be a part of us. We’re not only great on the field and pushing along the women’s game, but we’re also pushing along the women in this world.”

Goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris said that because she is preparing for a World Cup, she has a platform to speak about equality and a duty to use it, especially as she looks towards the end of her career.

“I’ve dedicated my entire life to my craft,” said Harris. “I have not been financially rewarded for what I’ve given and the success I’ve reached. So why do we speak up? Because I don’t want the future to have to worry about what I have to worry about in a few years, and that’s starting this life all over again at 35.”

After the World Cup, Harris and her World Cup teammates will continue their fight with U.S. Soccer. It is important to note that, while the 2019 lawsuit specifically seeks damages for national team players, the team still knows there is work to do in the USSF-owned National Women’s Soccer League.

Since 2016, the national team has found ways to incorporate the NWSL into its fight for gender equality in soccer, as players in that league who don’t play for their respective national teams don’t make a livable wage, and some NWSL teams even lack proper training conditions.

Crystal Dunn, who will be playing in her first World Cup, returned to the NWSL after being one of the final cuts from the 2015 World Cup roster. “World Cup years, I think are incredible. What [playing in NWSL] did for me was it allowed me to regroup and reset,” said Dunn. “That’s basically what really was important for me in 2015, was having the league to be able to take my mind off over everything else.”

The NWSL did raise the overall salary cap per team to $421,500 for the 2019 season. The increased salary cap brings the league minimum salary to $16,538 and the league max salary to $46,200, according to a January league release. The league also increased the housing allowance for each franchise, perhaps in light of controversy endured by New Jersey last year. Sky Blue FC came under massive heat when players began talking about the subpar conditions they faced for years. Training facilities with no running water, no showers at their home field facilities, and deplorable housing were just a few things they brought to light.

For all of these reasons and more, the fight off the pitch is important to the women’s national team. So too is playing to up their standards in France. The goal: World Cup champion or bust.

Except that tampons are almost never mentioned.

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Americans have an abiding discomfort, bordering on revulsion, toward any discussion of menstruation. In discourse both public and private, this most human of bodily functions is treated as secret and shameful, a demi-illness that must be concealed if the sufferer is to have any hope of being taken seriously in functional society. God forbid a man catch you with a tampon in your hand.

Even as our generosity is called upon to help meet the daily needs of hurricane survivors, though, the specific needs of menstruating people are largely forgotten. Some organizations, such as food and diaper banks, include requests for period supplies in their appeals; a handful of menstruation-specific nonprofits exist; and there have been occasional media mentions, but these are by far the exception rather than the rule. For the most part, the parts of being a victim that are deemed unpleasant are studiously ignored.

Of course, for many Americans, it doesn’t take a natural disaster for the everyday to become tenuous. The poor, the homeless, the unemployed, and underemployed must regularly choose between school supplies or winter coats, diapers or tampons.

Depending on type, brand, and coverage, tampons and pads cost roughly $6 to $9 for a package of about 40, which any menstruator can tell you may not even last a month. Four weeks later that expense comes by again, to the tune of $70 to $110 a year before sales tax. For people who make $15,000 working full time at a minimum-wage job, that’s the kind of expense that can easily mean the difference between paying a bill or defaulting.

In recent years a movement has emerged to lessen this burden by eliminating sales taxes on period supplies; recently enacted laws to that effect are both hugely welcome and not remotely sufficient. What’s really needed, nationwide, is something akin to the law passed last year in New York City providing tampons and pads free of charge at schools, shelters, and correctional facilities—a move echoed by the federal government in late August, when it issued a recommendation that all federal penitentiaries do likewise.

Because lest we forget, period supplies are not optional. At the end of the day, pads and tampons serve one purpose: to contain menstrual fluid. With nothing to stop it, the combination of vaginal secretions, uterine lining, and (yep) blood can become a powerful mess. It’s a feature of the human reproductive system, not a bug—half of human bodies were designed to function this way. Forgetting that humans need period supplies is like forgetting that they need toilets (and then shaming them for urinating).

Girls and women (and some trans boys and trans men) who can’t readily meet this need are forced to make do however they can, often resorting to inappropriate or fundamentally unsanitary solutions that threaten their health, fertility, and basic ability to get things done—it’s hard to focus in math class or on the job if you know you’re bleeding all over your chair. That’s why Human Rights Watch recently released a report recognizing that menstrual hygiene is in fact not just a question of finances, but a human right.

We are right to open our hearts and our wallets to those who have had to watch as all they hold dear is literally washed away. No matter the weather, families always need food, babies always need diapers, and people who menstruate always need pads or tampons.

But what is true for the survivors of hurricanes is also true for the survivors of poverty. The deeply held misogyny that prevents us from treating female bodies as normal intersects with our dehumanization of poor people, and it prevents us from seeing that need (much less meeting it).

As we struggle to build a world that’s fairer for everybody who lives in it, it’s not enough to consider only the bodies we feel comfortable talking about. Whether rising to the challenge posed by natural disasters or acting to mitigate the unnatural disaster of poverty, we must begin to acknowledge the full humanity of all affected, reproductive organs included.

Women’s rights have come a long way since then. We can expect the Equal Protection Clause to apply to us. We can end marriages that don’t work for us, and pregnancies that we didn’t plan. We can’t be fired for getting pregnant, and we can apply for our own credit cards. We can refuse to have sex with our spouses, and buy contraception without being married. We can be astronauts, Supreme Court justices, four-star generals, and nominees for President of the United States.

It’s easy to point out all the broken glass ceilings as evidence of our equality. But it isn’t the full picture—not by a long shot.

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Women’s earnings are still approximately 20 percent less than men’s. And the gender pay gap persists even though women are more likely to earn bachelor’s degrees than men, and do one and a half times as much unpaid care work.

Right now, women in our country are given unreasonable and unequal choices. Either put food on the table or care for your child. Find a new job or a second job to make ends meet. Grin and bear sexual harassment, unequal pay, and disrespect, or accept a reputation as a troublemaking bitch. Choose to be a good mom, a good daughter, or a good employee.

This is not the life I signed up for, and I doubt you did either. Yes, there are a handful of women who seem to have it all. They either came into this world with privilege, possess exceptional family supports, or won the boss lottery. But none of those bits of fortune are guaranteed—we can gain them through luck, lose them through misfortune, or never experience them at all. That’s why, until all women can slay, none of us really can.

As feminists, we have a long road ahead in the struggle for women achieving economic freedom. We need to root out sexism, racism, discrimination, ageism, and gender inequality across the board, but that’s not possible until all women acquire real economic power.

The women who make our country work ought to have a say in how that work gets done and who benefits from it. Our economic liberation requires freedom in our workplaces, in our health care decisions, in our homes, and in our communities. The long-term policy shifts to make that happen won’t take place overnight. Structural fixes aren’t easy or sexy, and can’t be summed up in a hashtag or on a t-shirt.

How many women do you know who are stressed out from juggling work and caring for their spouses, children, and aging parents because Congressional leaders refuse to implement a comprehensive paid family leave program? The care conundrum cuts across race and class, yet the women who work for low-wage employers are in the worst predicament, trying to balance the fear of losing their jobs or life savings while navigating a patchwork of insufficient fixes.

And how many still have to bear the brunt of sexual harassment, for fear of losing their jobs? The Huffington Post found that 1 in 3 women has been sexually harassed at work. Nearly half of all housekeepers in Chicagoland hotels had guests expose themselves, and 65 percent of casino cocktail servers had a guest grope or grab them.

But there are signs of progress, as women band together to reclaim our power. Around the country, women are winning campaigns for paid sick days, for consistent and dependable schedules, for equal pay, for ending the sexist and racist tipped subminimum wage, and for domestic workers to be included in basic wage and overtime protections that they have been barred from since the New Deal. Through these wins, women are taking the first steps at earning a fair return on their work so they can make smart choices for themselves and their families, and for the women who follow.

As feminists, we must combine the demands of the millions of women who came before us, of those fighting for their rights today, and of our daughters and granddaughters who have yet to grasp the full weight of living in an unequal world. If we do so, together we can rewrite the rules so that women from all walks of life are in the drivers’ seat, taking control of their lives and their economic well-being.

President Obama’s action gave women a stronger tool to fight for equal pay, and it made them more financially secure. It also signaled clearly that our president was going to spend his term fighting for a woman’s right to have the same chance as a man to succeed, to have a better shot at escaping poverty, and to create a better life for themselves and their families.

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Facing opposition from an unfriendly Congress, President Obama signed executive orders granting federal workers and contractors a higher minimum wage and paid sick days, making pay more transparent by requiring government contractors to give their employees the necessary information each pay period to make sure they are getting paid what they are owed, and making workplaces safer by allowing victims of sexual assault or harassment their day in court. These reforms were key for women, who make up the majority of minimum wage workers and who are often tasked with caring for dependents when they are sick. Making pay transparent also helps employees to know if their pay is lower than other similar employees—which could be an indication of pay discrimination.

President Obama also enacted one of the most significant anti-poverty measures in years when he expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit in the stimulus bill. Between 2009 and 2011, these expansions kept 9 million people out of poverty. They were particularly crucial for women and their families, who would have lost over $8 billion in tax assistance if the reforms had been allowed to expire.

Additionally, President Obama vigorously enforced civil rights laws, which removed impediments to opportunities for women and girls. The Obama administration stepped up enforcement of Title IX to combat sexual assault in universities and colleges, as well as K-12 schools. He also fought for and signed the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which was expanded to better protect all women, including LGBTQ individuals, American Indian and Alaskan Native women, and women who are undocumented immigrants.

But arguably no legislation during the Obama years did more for women’s equality than the Affordable Care Act (ACA). For many years prior to the passage of the ACA, health care costs were the leading cause of bankruptcy filings—meaning that many women and families were just one medical emergency away from financial ruin. Additionally, simply being a woman was considered a pre-existing condition, which allowed insurance companies to charge women more for health coverage. In fact, before the ACA, 92% of health insurers gender-rated their plans—charging women more than men for their plans—even when maternity coverage was excluded. Women are unfortunately used to paying more for things labeled as “for women,”—for jeans, razors, or beauty products, for example—but health insurance is no longer one of those things.

In total, nearly 10 million women gained health coverage since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. Medical bankruptcies decreased, as did the share of Americans struggling to pay their medical bills. Insurance companies can no longer charge women more than men because of their gender. And through Medicaid expansion—in the 32 states and DC that expanded Medicaid as the law intended—low-income women gained access to health care and mandated coverage of many core preventative services, including contraception.

These significant achievements have made a real difference in women’s lives. Thank you, Obama. Really. Thank you a million times over.

Now, as Obama concludes his presidency, much of the progress of the past eight years is threatened. We have replaced our unabashedly feminist president with a president who isn’t quite convinced that women should be allowed to work. Additionally, President-elect Trump and Congressional Republicans have made repealing the ACA their banner cry, and Trump has promised to appoint a Supreme Court justice who will overturn Roe v. Wade. Meanwhile, Speaker Ryan has argued for the block granting of Medicaid, housing, nutrition assistance, school lunches and more, and for dramatic cuts to social safety net programs—all while potentially slashing taxes for big corporations, millionaires, and billionaires.

The fight ahead to preserve our progress is daunting, but we’re ready. The well-being and economic security of women and families are worth fighting for with everything we’ve got.

Editor’s note: TalkPoverty presents this series in collaboration with the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality.

Despite the fact that he has objectified, threatened, and assaulted women, an astonishing 53% of white women voted for Donald Trump. Among white women without a college degree, that number was 61%. The feminist narrative of female solidarity—of women helping women—fell short, and now we’re struggling to deal with the fall out.

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Racism and sexism are key parts of this story. But many working-class white women pledged their allegiance to Trump for his false promises of job growth and national security. It seems these women felt invisible—but they sure are visible now.

In some ways, it makes sense that mainstream feminists were surprised to discover working-class women when the exit polls started coming in. There’s an economic gulf between women of different classes, and it’s widening. As Katherine Geier recently wrote in The Nation, “In the decades since the dawn of second-wave [feminism], educated women gained access to high-status jobs, but working-class women experienced declining wages and […] shouldered an increasingly heavy burden of care.” And while this class divide affects all women, the disparity disproportionately affects women of color.

The chasm between women of different classes is often exacerbated by the movement’s rhetoric. The highly-educated women who have been able to rise up the economic ladder have dominated the feminist agenda, and they’ve used much of that power to stress social and cultural issues like putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill and ending period shaming. These issues are important, but their over-promotion leaves the economic concerns of many working-class women behind. And the Lean In-style messaging that defines so much of modern feminism, which tells women that “feeling confident […] is necessary to reach for opportunities,” falls flat if there aren’t actually opportunities to reach for.

Women make up two-thirds of the low-wage workforce—and almost half of those workers are women of color. These women often find themselves doing care work or working jobs in the service or retail industries that require emotional labor. With wages below $10 an hour, they barely scrape by. But these are the jobs we carve out for women, in part because women are still predominantly characterized as caregivers.

If feminists are serious about supporting all women, one of the steps we need to take is to open up opportunities for the women we have left behind—opportunities that are historically dominated by men.

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that one leading cause of the gender wage gap is that women work in segregated occupations. For example, 88% of home health aides and 63% of food servers are women. In contrast, men have a near-monopoly on “middle skill” jobs, like transportation or information technology, which offer greater job security and tend to pay higher wages without requiring a full college degree. In the next decade, there will be more than two million job openings in these “middle skill” occupations. Recruiting more women is not only strategic for employers—many of whom report that it’s difficult to find new employees—but it’s also a necessary step towards economic security for working-class women.

Samantha Farr, founder of Women Who Weld, is working to create a path for women to enter industries that have historically excluded women. The Detroit-based nonprofit teaches welding to unemployed or underemployed women.

“Access to low-cost or subsidized programs that teach people skills needed for jobs that offer sustainable wages is critical for both human and economic development in Detroit,” says Farr. “There are several welding schools in Detroit, but most are only available to high school or middle school students and none are aimed at training welding to women exclusively.”

Farr hopes to expand Women Who Weld to nearby cities, and to renovate vacant homes in Detroit in order to house graduates of the program—many of whom currently live in temporary shelters. She says that the organization is showing both women and men that “women can forge new opportunities for themselves” and “that welding and the skilled trades can be a viable career path for a woman.”

Building a pipeline that brings women into middle skill jobs will require some shifts in policy. But we will also need to abandon deep-seated notions of how women should work. Well-to-do feminists cannot simply climb to the top of the ladder and cut out the pegs below them, especially when there are so many women struggling to get even a few steps above the floor.