No level of excellence can escape inequality: Rapinoe

"There's no level of status, there's no accomplishment or power, that will protect you from the clutches of inequality," she told a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee titled "Honoring ‘Equal Pay Day’: Examining the Long-Term Economic Impacts of Gender Inequality."

"One cannot simply outperform inequality, or be excellent enough to escape discrimination of any kind," she said.

Rapinoe described the many accolades lavished on her and her colleagues of the U.S. Women's Soccer team, and how they have been consistently paid less than their male counterparts.

"And if it can happen to us, and it can happen to me - with the brightest lights shining on us at all times - it can, and it does happen to every person who is marginalized by gender."

Rapinoe ended her opening statement urging lawmakers to act on the matter, using the acronym "LFG," for "let's go," with a seven-letter expletive in the middle.