To The Girls Who Love Sports,

Girls can’t play sports.Girls can’t jump as high.Girls can’t run as fast.Girls can’t be as strong. Girls can't sweat.Girls can’t throw a ball.Girls can’t catch a ball.These are the ridiculous phrases that go through many male mind s.The separation between men and women in the sports world is unfortunately, still prevalent today.The attention the professional men’s sports teams receive is tremendously higher than the attention the women’s teams receive.The hype and excitement fans show are complete opposites between men and women’s teams.Overall, women have come a long way in the area of sports, but we deserve more credit than we are currently receiving .

Being a college athlete myself, I have firsthand experience on being a woman in the sports world and the different kinds of jokes and criticisms that come our way.For me, going through middle school was the worst time to be a female athlete. The “cool guys” would make a mockery out of coming to the girl’s games and start a fan section for us to score, which, according to them, was four points a game, which was very frustrating.The jokes that were directed at the girl’s teams were always nasty and were meant to usually bring out the athletic ability differences between females and males .It was ironic because the jokes usually came from the boys who were the least athletic and just took all of their anger out on girls who probably had more athletic ability than them.

My personal story comes into play in the eighth grade when my basketball team had made it to the championship for the fourth year in a row.The boys in my class thought it was funny to tell jokes about all of us being tomboys and only being able to score eight points a game.Neither of those statements were true, but thry got so much enjoyment from tormenting us, that none of them cared.They showed up at the game and made a big scene after we scored our fourth basket and cheered for the girls sitting on the bench that they knew will most likely not play.The jokes and chants that they would obnoxiously scream during the games were embarrassing most of all.The point I would like to make though, is that none of these boys were in the championships, instead they were at the girl’s championship game making a mockery out of us, instead of focusing on their own sports and becoming champions themselves.

You can’t compare attendance at a WNBA game to an NBA game.What you can compare is the hard work that both the WNBA and NBA players put in.The women’s games and men’s games will obviously not be the same, simply because both genders offer something different to watch .Walking into a WNBA stadium and being able to see more empty seats than actual fans is an image that should make people sick to their stomach, while on the other hand at an NBA game, there are hardly any empty seats.What is it that makes men so much more fascinating to watch than women?Is it their mind-boggling athletic ability, or is it the attraction of the fast-pace game full of unimaginable dunks and nail biting last second plays.The fact of the matter is, yes the NBA will offer the unthinkable athletic abilities and ESPN Top Ten plays, however, the WNBA should not get penalized for not guaranteeing the same results.Fans need to learn to appreciate the fact that neither the NBA nor WNBA is better than the other, instead they offer different shows and highlight different talents.

Girls know that we can play sports, we can jump, run, be strong, sweat and throw and catch a ball, however, the immature males and disrespectful jokes targeting the female athlete population are nauseating.Skyrocketing attendance numbers at men’s sporting events make women’s teams seem almost laughable.Both males’ and females’, no matter what the sport is, are choosing to give up their bodies, life and time solely to the sport they love.Dedication and hard work should be rewarded equally, whether your name is Lucy or Bill.Instead of judging and preaching about how pathetic the concept of women playing sports seems, go out on a limb and attend a women’s sporting event.Being an athlete, no matter what level, is painful on the body as well as very time consuming, but the love and support the two genders receive from their fan bases need to be equal, because the hard work they put in was just as equal.