Who is the sportsperson of the year Megan Rapinoe?

In the 65th edition of Sports Illustrated, Rapinoe was awarded with the prize that recognizes "the athlete or team whose performance that year most embodies the spirit of sportsmanship and achievement". 

And the selection was not a surprise at all: this year, and throughout her career, Megan has caused a huge impact on the landscape for women in sports and has used her position of power to raise awareness about several things that are not ok today. 

For example, when accepting her Sportsperson of the Year award, she called out Sports Illustrated on their lack of diversity in the annual publication.  

"Is it true that I am the fourth woman deserving of this award? I don't think so. Is it true that so few writers of color deserve to be featured in this publication? Is it true that so few women's voices deserve to be heard and deserve to be read in this publication? I don't think so."

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According to Women’s Agenda, previous female winners include, golfer Patty Sheehan, gymnast Mary Lou Retton and tennis star, Serena Williams.

Rapinoe, who came out as gay four years before same-sex marriage was legalized across the United States, has inspired many people to do the same, including some of her teammates. As read on Business Insider, by doing so she expects young girls to stop being afraid of who they are. 

Megan has also fought against sexism in sports: in 2016, with Hope Solo, Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, and Becky Sauerbrunn, she filed a complaint against the US Soccer Federation, accusing them of gender discrimination and violation of the Equal Pay Act and Title XII. 

"If and when, and ever, they are willing to have a conversation about equal pay that starts there and goes forward… We're always open for that. We won't accept anything less than equal pay", she told NBC's Today. 

This year alone Megan has been awarded the 2019 Ballon d’Or, the Women Sports Foundation’s 2019 Team, Sportswoman of the Year, the 2019 Best FIFA Women’s Player and many others. 

After accepting her award for the Glamour magazine’s women of the year, she said: “While I’m enjoying all of this unprecedented attention and personal success, in large part due to my activism off the field, Colin Kaepernick is still effectively banned from the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem in protest of known and systematic police brutality against people of color, known and systematic racial injustice, and known and systematic white supremacy”. 

She has also called out, several times, her male colleagues to speak out about these causes as well. According to CNBC, in a recent interview with France Football after winning the Ballon d’Or, Rapinoe talked about her desire for players as Cristiano to support causes by doing as little as retweeting something. 

“I want to shout: ‘Cristiano, Lionel, Zlatan, help me!’ These big stars do not engage in anything when there are so many problems in men’s football,” she said. “Do they fear losing everything? They believe that, but it is not true. Who will erase Messi or Ronaldo from world football history for a statement against racism or sexism?”

For Megan, activism is innate to women in sports, because, as she told WBUR, “you're usually underpaid. You're usually not shown as much on TV. There's a lack of investment. A lot of the management and leadership of sports and of the TV industry, all of it is a lot of men,” she says. “So I think that innate of being a female athlete, you're sort of skins in the game already.”