I am a female .I am also an athlete. I've played various sports such as soccer, basketball, flag football, weightlifting and track. As you might have guessed, I am very passionate about sports. Playing all of these sports over the past few years has made me admire and have respect for anyone that plays any sport. Playing any type of sport takes true dedication and hard work, but it seems like being a women in the athletic world takes a little more commitment than it would for men. Women tend to be minimized in the world of athletes compared to men. 

It's obvious women have come a long way in the sports industry since Title IX, the Act that allowed women to participate in sports without being discriminated. Since then, women participating in sports has gone from hundreds of thousands to millions. I remember as a child playing in a local soccer clubs in town. On every team I played with, there would only be about one or two other girls on the team if even that. Sometimes I would be the only girl surrounded by all boys. The coaches would always put me in the back as a defender or some other place where I wouldn’t be in the way as much. This continued until I was almost a teenager when more teams were created to allow more girls to participate in the sport. This also happened most recently in my high school, there had always been a boys weightlifting team but until last school year a girls weightlifting team was added. Creating sports teams and clubs equally available for both girls and boys should be something that needs to be taken into account. 

Although women are able to participate in the same sports as men, women aren't seen as equal when it comes to their wages. Women have been known to be paid less than half the salary men receive for the same sport. People may argue that men get paid more because they are better in the sport than women but that’s not always the case. For example in U.S soccer the women's team has won four Olympic championships and three World Cup championships, versus the men, who have not won any at all. Even with these facts, U.S female soccer players earn a little less than one-thousand five hundred if they win a match, unlike the U.S men soccer players who earn as much as five-thousand if they lose a match. Another point people try to make is that men attract a bigger audience therefore, they deserve a higher salary. This isn't the case for sports like gymnastics, figure skating, or track and field where most of the attention is focused on women. It also isn't the case for soccer, the U.S women's team holds the record of most views in an English language soccer game with 25.4 million views. With these points, I still don’t understand why men and women aren't paid equally or why the more successful team is paid more, whether that’s the women's team or the men's.  

The Olympic games is something seen by everyone across the world and played by thousands of athletes from many countries. Being able to participate in The Olympics is a big deal and winning is an even bigger deal, or it is if you’re a male. When U.S female Olympic player, Corey Cogdell-Unrein, won a bronze medal in trap shooting, a Chicago newspaper covered the story but failed to mention her name. The newspaper instead referred to her as the wife of a Chicago Bears lineman. Imagine working hard and practicing every day for The Olympics and actually being able to win. Then have the media cover your victory and not even mention your name but rather your husbands, which seems to me had nothing to do with your victory. In my opinion, if I'm not going to receive the correct recognition for my accomplishments, then don't mention me in the media at all.  Reporters would also use the terms "married" or "unmarried" to describe women unlike men that were described as "fast" and "strong." Another incident where women were downplayed in the Olympics compared to men was when a local newspaper from Texas.  Michael Phelps made the headline for his silver medal and Ledecky made the subheading for setting a world record in women's 800 freestyle. This type of coverage in the media happens constantly when it comes to women participating and sports, it may not seem like a big deal to some but I find this very important. Any athlete should be recognized correctly in the news for their accomplishments and gender shouldn’t affect that.