All across the media, from the time I was a little kid through now, women have been very underrepresented as athletes by the media. The media talks about the NHL, NFL, NBA, and MLB heavily, but nothing else. The media is putting gender segregation in sports in society.

Women have always been a minority in sports. In 1972, Title IX was implemented, which, essentially, is the idea of equal opportunity in sports regardless of race, age, and gender. Participation in sports by women has increased since then, however, there is still so much work to do to bring it up even more.

The more the media promotes men in competitive sports and women being leisure athletes, the more society will internalize that this is the way things are. It all comes down to social theory; sports are generally associated with men, so that becomes the societal "norm."

However, because the media is a business, they base their decisions on the way society thinks and is influenced. Since society associates men with sports and athletics, advertisers put out ads tailoring their products towards men, and journalists write their articles tailoring their stories towards men. This is because they know they will get the best business and response this way. Society, on the other hand, gets these messages and that is how they internalize them. It is an endless cycle.

Though there is scientific and biological differences between the athletic ability in men and women, each gender should be respected the same, regardless of their sport. Men, biologically, are able to build much more strength than women, however, that does not mean that women are not strong and cannot play a sport that requires strength.

This all comes back to social theory. Men are directly associated with strength, while women are directly associated with weakness. Though strength is different between genders, both have the ability to be physically "strong." Women, however, are treated as eye candy and cheerleaders in the sports world, when, in reality, women have the potential to play any sport, as well as have the same, if not more, amount of knowledge on a sport in comparison to men.

Women deserve to be treated much more seriously in the sport industry, but because of societal beliefs set in place by the media, it's not looking likely to happen.