Boys might be able to participate in soccer, baseball, football, basketball, swimming, hockey, martial arts, while for girls there may be only basketball, gymnastics, swimming, and soccer. Girls' locker rooms always seem to be smaller, their practice times less convenient, and their games likely to be scheduled on school nights, when attendance is sparse, rather than on crowd-friendly weekends. The girls' teams carpool, the boys' teams get the hired bus. The national media offer only minimal news coverage of our daughters' sports heroines or of the women's teams they follow. Studies reveal that more than 95 percent of national sports coverage pertains to male athletes.
Athletic girls lack female role models.
Even if your daughter loves sports and gets a chance to play, her coaches might be all men. Our daughters drop out of sports at much higher rates than our sons, and it tends to happen right on the cusp of adolescence, when girls most need the benefits athletics can provide. While a third of high school freshman girls play sports, that percentage drops to 17 percent in their senior year. Some parents may be surprised by the characterization of American girls today as eager to play sports. They might see their daughters spending much more time loafing around the house watching TV than engaging in any kind of physical exertion.