Margaret “Midge” Purce is a professional soccer player for NJ/NY Gotham FC with 30 caps for the US Women’s National Team (USWNT), as well as an outspoken advocate for gender equality, equal pay, and equal opportunity for women and girls in sport and beyond. In 2022, she was a driving force in achieving the Equal Pay for Equal Work Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) ensuring a slew of improvements in pay and benefits for the USWNT. Additionally, Purce is a co-founder of the Black Women’s Player Collective (BWPC), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization committed to advancing opportunities for Black girls both on and off the field through community development, mentorship, and education. Currently, she is executive producing The Offseason, a reality-style TV show following the lives of 11 stars of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL). Not to mention, she’s the reigning NWSL Final MVP after her incredible two-assist performance in the 2023 championship match.
Benjamin Stern: Could you describe an experience or story that inspired you to get involved in the fight for gender equality?
Midge Purce: That’s a harder question than you think, because a lot of the motivation for me to care about gender equality is the fact that I am a woman, so I have felt gender inequality affect my life in ways where it just becomes a natural priority. Beyond that, the very obvious way is that I have experienced pay inequality, or unequal pay for the same work. I work very hard and I take a lot of pride in doing good work, so compensation has been really important to me as well.
BS: You’ve been a key part in the fight to win equal pay and equal treatment for athletes regardless of gender. What would you say have been your biggest accomplishments so far?
MP: The CBA with the USWNT was a historic deal, which absolutely garnered pay equality, but not just through equal compensation with the men’s national team. We were also given equal playing fields, equal environments, equal medical team requirements, and even equal hotels when traveling. The CBA was really huge because the spirit of equality was captured. It wasn’t just pay, but also environment and standards all across the board.
BS: How did the Black Women’s Player Collective (BWPC) come to be, and what are some of the initiatives you’re most proud of, or that you think are having the biggest impacts in the community today?
MP: The Black Women’s Player Collective started in 2020, during a time when the whole world was in disarray. There was Covid, of course, but there were also a lot of social injustices on people’s minds at the time like with Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. It was during a time where most, if not all, of the Black players in the league felt like some type of action needed to be taken, and we felt like there was a part that we could play in helping to resolve some of the issues with the reality that we all experienced. We’re not trying to convince anyone of what we believe or what we think the nature of the country is. Rather, we all have this shared experience because of race, and we’re all aligned in the belief that there’s something we can do to make sure that other people don’t have the same experience we’ve had. We can make it better for the next generation. I would say that our most impressive initiative would probably be our mini pitches, which we’re building all across the country, holding clinics and trying to improve access to sport for the next generation of Black girls. It’s a really cool opportunity for younger players and girls who aren’t players to meet professional athletes and see this road that you can take in sport and just be around someone who has used sport in a way that is really inspirational.
BS: Was there a lot of discussion with other Black players around the league before you established the BWPC in trying to figure out what it was going to look like and how you were going to make it the most impactful it could be?
MP: There were so many endless conversations about structure and how you actually start something like this. It’s a nonprofit, but it was the first business structure I’ve ever been a part of from a foundational perspective. I remember someone told me, “you know, this is going to be a lot more work than you expect,” and I remember thinking that it was going to be fine. Then all of a sudden it was so much work. That being said, I’m so proud of it, and I’m proud of the work that it does. I think we’re all just really proud of being able to put it together.
BS: How international do you think this movement for equal pay and equal treatment in women’s sports really is? Do you think it’s mostly an American movement, or have you seen and experienced players around the world fighting for the same goals you are?
MP: I think the movement in the US has been an ideal for the rest of the world—it has served as a prototype of what could be established. It is global, though. Australia and the Netherlands have had some really powerful movements in their respective fights for gender equality. It’s women around the world who are united.
BS: Obviously, there’s been some backlash against the US Women’s National team for your involvement in politics and advocacy. After the 2023 World Cup, Alexi Lalas, who, for our readers, is a retired American soccer player with 96 caps for the Men’s National Team, claimed that the Women’s National Team’s political involvement was hurting their public image, even saying that it made the team “unlikeable.” How do you overcome those kinds of attempts in the media to undermine the progress of your work, and to what extent do you feel they have undermined your progress?
MP: I think to be a woman in sport is to lack the option to be nonpolitical, and I think that is an aspect of being a female professional athlete that people don’t really understand. The USWNT wouldn’t be where it is today if they never got political, so I don’t see much merit to the Lalas argument, and I don’t think it really bothers any of us, to be quite honest. We have bigger fish to fry. We’re fighting for equal pay. We’re fighting for the progress of generations to come, in a sport that was not even available to us not too long ago. So sure, it’s an observation. We have been more political, but I don’t give much to the critique.
BS: Do you think Lalas being a white male athlete contributes to his stance? I know you mentioned that being a woman in sport inherently implicates you as a political actor, so is the flip-side therefore that lacking that identity can lead to misunderstandings of those experiences?
MP: Absolutely, yeah. Identity is where those experiences and understandings come from.
BS: In my opinion, one of the coolest photos in sports over the last year or so was your now pretty famous one, taken just after your 2023 NWSL championship victory, holding the championship and the final MVP trophies in each hand with a cigar in your mouth and gold confetti in the background. I know you’ve received some backlash in the media for that cigar, so could you describe a little bit about what that media attention looked like and how it affected you, if at all?
MP: I’m so blessed with my small circle of family. I remember I was at the championship after the game with my dad, my brother, and my boyfriend, and all of them were like, “let me light you up!” The people I’m surrounded with, and specifically the men in my life, are so supportive, but they also are people who would criticize me when it’s warranted, so with things like the cigar, I don’t even really give it a second thought. Most of the criticism comes from this understanding that everything I do should be for the inspiration of a little girl, and I think that’s not a reasonable way to look at athletes or role models in general. I love when I can inspire someone, and I love that there are young girls who do look at me as an example. And further, I would argue that I’ve done a lot of things that would make me a pretty good person to look at in terms of how you might want to navigate the world later in life. But it’s unhelpful and unreasonable to expect me or anyone to act solely as a role model to kids, especially when zeroing in on female athletes. That is to say, criticism for a cigar doesn’t doesn’t bother me.
BS: With a second Trump administration coming to the White House in January, how do you expect your work to change, if at all?
MP: That’s a really good question. I think it’s interesting because I always look at it from the lens of an athlete and, and I sincerely have no idea to what degree new policies could affect me in that respect. That said, I can anticipate changes simply from being a woman and more specifically a woman of color. I think there will be changes that have real effects, but it is hard to predict the extent to which those new policies will change our lives.
BS: Where to next? What are some of your goals for the coming months, years, and so on, whether on or off the pitch?
MP: That’s actually a really easy question. I have my eye on that next World Cup. If you ask me what I’m thinking about right now, I’m thinking about the 2027 World Cup and that’s really it.
BS: As a soccer fan, I have to ask, what would it mean to you to be part of a World Cup squad, and then of course what would it mean to win it?
MP: When you play for the U.S. Women’s National Team, you have the opportunity to be the best in the world at something, and I think that’s a really rare and almost sacred thing to be able to accomplish. To me, it just means everything. I’m excited for the whole process.
BS: What do you think is left to do for the movement in women’s sports, whether through policy, social and cultural attitude shifts, or something else entirely? What are the most important projects moving forward?
MP: I think everything’s left to do. We accomplished equal pay with the US women’s national team, but I still play in a league in the US where our salaries aren’t even close to the same as the men. And of course we don’t play in the Major League Soccer (MLS), but in terms of growing the game and growing the sport, we have so much to do on the women’s side. In the same way, attitudes and societal perspectives on women in sport are so skewed, and there’s so much that needs changing. I put up The Offseason and I can’t tell you how many comments there are questioning women playing soccer in the first place, saying things like, “ew, no, never!” For as much progress as we have made, there’s not really a finish line. We’ll never be done.
BS: Who’s your favorite soccer/football player of all time?
MP: It’s so hard to pick a favorite, but I’ve always been a Lionel Messi fan. I saw him play at Red Bull Arena last year, and I just thought, “I can’t believe I’m seeing Messi play in person in my lifetime.” Then he scored and I was like, “I’ve seen Messi score a goal.” This is crazy.
BS: Have you ever had a moment where you met a player and were completely starstruck?
MP: No. But that being said, I haven’t met Messi. If there was someone who could do it, it’s Messi for sure.
BS: Your first assist in the NWSL final last year was unreal to watch, but how did it feel to make such a huge impact in scoring the opening goal in a game with so much weight?
MP: I don’t think I’ve ever looked at it like that. I think there was something really special about that team, and I get chills when I think about it because it’s one of the best groups of women I’ve ever been a part of. We all just wanted it so bad and were willing to do everything we possibly could to win. That whole game, you just saw everyone giving their absolute best, putting forth all they had to offer. That may sound easy, but it’s actually really hard to accomplish in practice. I guess that assist was just my best. That was all I had to offer.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity