We Heart: Desi Lydic’s Defense of the USWNT

The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team emerged victorious against Thailand last week, scoring a 13-0 victory in the Women’s World Cup. But instead of celebrating the record-breaking win—or highlighting the team having scored more goals in one game than all the men’s World Cup goals since 2006—male sports commentators are focused on what they called the “classless behavior” of the women’s “stat-padding slaughters replete with over-the-top celebrations.”

But The Daily Show‘s Desi Lydic set them straight on the air Friday.

“Our women weren’t playing against Thailand,” Lydic said in a segment. “They were playing against the patriarchy. That’s what this game was really about.”

She also touched on the class-action lawsuit USWNT players recently filed against U.S. Soccer for gender discrimination, making a suggestion for how the organization could move forward more equitably.

“Maybe U.S. Soccer should play the men less,” Lydic suggested. “Maybe then they’d be motivated to actually qualify for their World Cup.”

Yelling a long, drawn out “goal,” she then ran across the stage and into the audience with her hands in the air.

About

Willow Taylor Chiang Yang is a current summer intern for Ms. Magazine, which perhaps gives an idea of her feminist leanings. In addition to being an outspoken women's rights advocate and a proud, politic-loving Asian American, she is the Editor-in-Chief of her school newspaper, her grade's Student Council representative and a devotee of convoluted sentence structure. She was also a Senior Project Editor for the Since Parkland Project, and appeared on ABC7's Midday Live.