Sometimes you can hear it. Sometimes you can smell it. This one, you can feel. The tide is turning.

What started as a slow, steady howl has grown into a guttural growl. It was the year of the awoken dragon, and women are breathing fire. On a global scale, national women's soccer teams and players came together to say enough. To say, we deserve better. To say, we too deserve to be supported, we too deserve to be paid more, we too deserve better facilities, we too deserve respect.

Call it courageous or call it long overdue, but the movement is on. Women's soccer is bringing in record numbers in attendance: for the Africa Cup of Nations, for Mexico's women's pro league, for the FA Cup final, for the European Championship this past summer. Record numbers are watching women's soccer on TV as well. The women's game is growing, continent by continent. And the players have found their voice.

And none too soon. I have been waiting, begging, for this tipping point since the late 1990s, when our U.S. women's national team battled the U.S. Soccer Federation for more support for the women's and girls' programs. We succeeded by standing up together as a team and demanding change. I then thought the success of the 1999 Women's World Cup in the United States would be the much-needed catalyst for change domestically and, in particular, globally. I was wrong. I underestimated the inertia of evolution.

As female athletes all over the world have discovered the hard way, changing cultures and mindsets takes action. Yes, one must act -- and act courageously. Most sports federations, corporations and governments don't change voluntarily. Change is brought by the disenfranchised demanding better. Change is brought by groups coming together and saying, "Unless we do something, the next generation will continue to suffer." I couldn't be more thrilled about women soccer players all over the globe deciding they would no longer be voiceless.