Through pioneers and slow progress, America's relationship to women's sports continues to evolve

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Athletes and fans of women's sports across the United States have found no shortage of reasons to celebrate: historic TV ratings , changing attitudes toward female players, high-profile wins for equal opportunities and pay .

After decades of disparity and sometimes outright scorn from schoolyards to stadiums and beyond, women’s sports these days are having — you guessed it — a moment.

As fans finish watching the WNBA finals and prepare for the NCAA season to start, women’s basketball is notably one of the biggest lightning rods of the recent surge of interest. Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson, who recently won the WNBA MVP for a record fifth time, predicts it is “just the tip of the iceberg.”

But the current moment stands in stark contrast to much of the country's history, which saw widespread conceptions about feminine ideals, concerns that physical activity would jeopardize female fertility and a lack of interest in or respect for women’s sports. While there have been athletes who have broken through to become household names — Billie Jean King, Serena Williams, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Mia Hamm, Simone Biles, Caitlin Clark — they have been few and far between.

Today, girls' sports participation has reached record highs. And amid unprecedented interest at the college and professional levels, investors are rushing to build stadiums and make long overdue facility upgrades.

But attacks on Title IX have also intensified.

“I do think at some point the curve is going to work in the right direction. But as of now, I think it’s still a lot more negative than positives that young teams are seeing,” says New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu.

As concerns linger about whether the current interest reflects a short-term trend or a real sea change, many female athletes say there’s still more work to do.

As of last year, about 3 in 10 U.S. adults follow women’s professional or college sports, compared to about half who follow men’s sports, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Those who follow women’s pro sports also are more casual in their fandom than men’s pro sports fans, tending to say they attend or watch games occasionally rather than frequently.

America's captivation with organized sports — for boys — is longstanding. The first modern Olympic Games (male competitors only) were held in 1896 and the arrival of the YMCA helped, too. By the late 19th century, sports had gained traction across the U.S., initiated in part by a perceived post-Civil War masculinity crisis and a burgeoning military.

“Men and boys needed access to sports and to the outdoors so that they could be vigorous and strong in preparation for these vigorous and highly competitive careers that were imagined for them,” says Ashley Brown, a historian at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

Girls were discouraged from participating. Concerns that athletic competition would make them overly aggressive and assertive were common, not to mention pervasive fears that strenuous physical activity would make women infertile. That changed as doctors realized some exercise could improve the concerning rate at which women were dying during childbirth, said Bonnie Morris, a historian at the University of California Berkeley.

“It becomes OK for women to exercise in moderation,” Morris says. “But they should always be understood to be different from what men are doing.”

Despite standouts like Olympic gold medalist Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Wimbledon champion Althea Gibson — both multisport pioneers — opportunities for female athletes remained limited for much of the 20th century.

“No matter how good they are, they can never be good enough quite to matter,” Paul Gallico wrote of female athletes in his 1938 memoir. “They are at best second-rate imitations of the gentlemen.”

The New York Daily News columnist was notoriously unkind and brash, often proclaiming women inferior athletically and wondering what to call professional female athletes: “Miss, Mrs., Mr., or It.” But Gallico’s words reflect a sentiment toward women in sports that was widely held.

“We really have to be grateful to those athletes back in 1971 who fought for us,” said Lisa Fernandez, a former Olympic softball player and current coach at the University of California Los Angeles. “They endured some things that weren’t great. They pushed for us.”

Then, in 1972, Title IX passed and the playing field changed dramatically.

Compared with about 3.7 million boys, less than 300,000 girls played high school sports in the 1971-72 school year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Six years later, more than 2 million girls were playing.

With Title IX came concrete opportunities, though it hardly brought parity overnight. Compliance failures were a persistent challenge, particularly when it came to facilities and equipment. A law also wasn't going to immediately change deep-rooted stereotypes about female athletes.

Even so, women’s sports has exploded over the past 20-plus years, and more recently found millions of fans willing to watch or attend games.

In response to disparaging comments on social media about nobody watching women’s sports, the female athlete-founded brand Togethxr created apparel that reads, “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports,” which has been worn by celebrities like Chelsea Handler and Jason Sudeikis.

Women’s sports are projected to generate at least $3 billion in global revenue this year, according to the consulting firm Deloitte. That number has skyrocketed in recent years, up from less than $1 billion as recently as 2023. And while other factors contributed, Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark helped drive record television ratings for women’s college basketball. Now on the Indiana Fever, the 24-year-old has carried that popularity to the WNBA.

Though recent trends suggest otherwise, conventional wisdom has historically said female athletes could not generate meaningful revenue, limiting professional leagues and potential brand deals for athletes.

But attacks have been more than dismissive, with some critics complaining sports go against girls' deferential nature.

“Expanding competitive sports for women was never merely about fairness or ‘opportunity,’” Scott Yenor, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, wrote in a lengthy critique of Title IX in July. “Promoting assertive athletics formed a core element of a broader project to remake female character itself. Producing a new woman who would be more aggressive, assertive, dominant, and less deferential, less graceful and less oriented toward motherhood and traditional feminine graces.”

From Washington to the WNBA, there's also been increased debate, much of which has been hypothetical, surrounding transgender athletes. “The war on women’s sports is over,” President Donald Trump said last year as he signed an executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.

Female athletes also face cultural expectations about what women's bodies should look like, especially since young athletes often develop muscles before making a conscious choice that they want them. Though they've diminished, societal preferences for thinness persist, especially in the age of GLP-1s.

“I was very insecure about my build in some ways,” University of Southern California basketball player Kennedy Smith says of her childhood. “I’m really insecure about my arms still to this day.”

Despite the known psychological and physical benefits of participating in sports, studies suggest that female athletes in certain sports are at a higher risk of developing eating disorders. In some cases, these pressures can discourage girls from continued participation, particularly as they go through puberty.

For many boys, sports are a rite of passage that can gain them clout with classmates and lead to college and professional opportunities. For girls, that's not historically been the case.

“Girls that I competed against got into junior high school, and then into high school and all of a sudden it’s not the cool thing to do,” recalls Leslie Maxie, a 59-year-old track and field athlete who competed in the 1988 Summer Olympics. “They kind of fell off. And it made me profoundly sad.”

But retention has improved significantly in recent years, with record numbers of girls playing high school sports. That trajectory is giving many athletes and coaches more hope.

Boston Fleet defender and U.S. gold-medal-winning goal-scorer Megan Keller reflected on the importance of opportunities beyond college for women, like the Professional Women’s Hockey League created in 2023.

“When I was growing up, I wanted to play in the NHL. And that’s just not possible,” she says. “Now girls can come to our game and see that this is a real dream and a reality."

It’s a game that they, too, can play.

AP Sports Writers Doug Feinberg in New York, John Wawrow in Toronto and Mark Anderson in Las Vegas contributed to this report.