Name: Henry Byrne

Social Justice Group: Pay Gap for Women Athletes

Date of Fieldwork: February 11, 2022

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Felisa Israel Part of the WNBA

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

On February 11, 2022, Nazir, Casey, and I interviewed Felisa Israel who is a part founder of the WNBA team, Phoenix Mercury. We were very fortunate to be able to interview her and collected a lot of information. The reason we decided to interview her is because of her experience having a big role as a female in a male dominated sports industry. She had a lot of what we were looking for and was able to thoroughly answer our questions. We learned more about problems in the industry and more information about gender integration in sports and why a lot of things are like they are in the sports industry to this day. One thing she told us is that she believes that it is fair that women play with women and men play with men because of physical ability. She said it is fair for two genders not to play together because of general skill level. It could be unfair.

She also told us some things about how we can help fix issues with the gender pay gap. I personally had a connection when she mentioned why men and women don’t play together. I am an athlete and I think this applies in different sports but I understand what she was coming from and what she was trying to tell us. We are very thankful for her going out of her way to help us on our project.