Women’s athletes should get more appreciation than they do. They should be treated with the same respect as male athletes.

Women put the same amount of work into athletics, but are paid much less and receive little to no recognition. According to Forbes, WNBA players only share less than 25 percent of the profits earned by the league, while NBA players share 50 percent of the revenue that they generate.

There are many ways to change outdated perspectives. There are some ways the school can help change this attitude about women’s sports. WSU must advertise women’s sports more frequently and more prominently so that its presence is felt around campus.

The women’s WSU soccer team is not nearly as advertised as the men’s football team. While Cougar football is very popular, WSU has the resources to advertise for other teams as well. WSU puts way more effort into advertising into students attending football games than they do for the soccer games. While a billboard may be excessive, increasing visual advertisements would help grow women’s soccer around campus.

Same goes for other women’s sports. Advertising women’s sports would improve the perception of women’s athletics throughout the student body.

WSU could increase student awareness and excitement around campus for women’s sports, and work to improve the culture around women’s athletics. They could march the band through campus and Greek row in order to increase student excitement of the games.

WSU could sell t-shirts throughout campus when big games are coming up, a lot like what they do for apple cup. Many students and parents really enjoy the community that comes with owning merchandise.

WSU could set up fun tailgating events for women’s sporting events getting students interested and thinking about the game such as corn hole and other fun activities outside of the stadium.

Having a larger audience at women’s events would change the view of women’s athletics throughout the campus and allow more women to feel pride in the sport they work so hard to participate in.

All throughout women’s athletics social media pages commenters mock and discriminate against women athletes. These comments often tell women to “get back in the kitchen” and state a “nobody cares” attitude.

Negative remarks on social media can make the athletes feel unmotivated, discouraged and ashamed of what they work so hard to achieve in sports. Girls tend to quit playing sports earlier than boys do.

These negative connotations with women’s sports and athletics come from an old and outdated way of thinking. Stereotypes that women should not be muscular and competitive do not belong in 2019. Many women work just as hard or harder than male athletes to get to the position they are in.

“People should just respect women that play sports equally as they do for men,” Gianna Chen, senior strategic communication major, said.