Last Tuesday, the NFL announced that it will have its first woman officiate the Super Bowl, which is something astonishing to a lot of people. Despite their surprise, without a doubt, there’s no reason a woman can’t do things just as well, if not better, than a man can. That includes professional football officiating.

43-year old Sarah Thomas has been named the Super Bowl down marker, who is a part of the seven-man officiating team crew on the field.

There is no reason a woman should just now in our country be achieving these accomplishments.

Thomas is an Alabama native where she first started out refereeing at the high school level before moving on to officiate NCAA football games.

She became the first woman to referee a Division-I college game, as well as the first woman to officiate in a Big Ten conference stadium.

After putting years of refereeing experience under her belt, Thomas officially started her professional career as a full-time referee in 2015. Four years later, she became the first woman referee to officiate an NFL playoff game.

This is another amazing accomplishment for her. It’s astonishing, seeing how currently she is the highest paid referee in a predominantly male profession. Women are continuously shedding this societal normalcy and rising to new growth of equal rights.

It’s always good to see women showing that they can always do anything any man can do in a profession deemed unsuccessful for women.

She’s a role model for other women who look to work in that particular field of work or other fields as well. Not every woman has to be an NFL official but this shows there are other professions deemed masculine that women are amazing at as well.

This is one big step for women in sports and the NFL, but they shouldn’t stop there. What about raising pay salaries for women throughout the NFL? This action will express gender equality to women and men in the same fields.

Seeing how women have been underpaid in all fields and aspects of business, this barrier-breaking action can be a big step for a lot of possible women officiates.

In an interview on the NFL website, Thomas explains how she wasn’t ever planning on being the first woman to do any of what she’s done and how amazing it’s been being the influence that she is for her daughter and other women.

“That’s what I want my daughter to do. I do know there are still industries that are not on an equal playing field with women.

My thing is, don’t let that keep you from continuing to do what you know that you have to do. Don’t look at it as an excuse, look at it as an opportunity.”

Initially, a lot of people hope that this will bring more women into the refereeing profession.

This is a great opportunity for making the room for women across countless spectrums to be able to break more and more barriers for women’s equal rights.