Hello, my name is Samantha. I attend the Maine School of Science and Mathematics. I am currently writing an english paper on the solutions to gender inequity in high school sports. I have written the problem paper and now we have moved on to a paper with solutions. I need some help though. I think that the solution that I think would be most effective would be to raise media coverage of the sporting events, therefore creating more interest in the event. I don't have too much evidence to prove this, and I also don't know of other solution attempts that I can either suggest or even just talk about why they did or did not work. If you could be of any help, that would be wonderful. I do not have much time on this paper, so if this could be done quickly it would be highly appreciated. Thank you for you time either way. Sincerely, Samantha

Your paper sounds great, mostly because often times people get too caught up in the problem and don't spend anytime on the solution. So your paper is certainly a start.

I also think the topic is great--it's good to focus on one thing and I'm glad that sports is the thing. The other day I was talking to a group of high school students and I was talking about equality in sports. They were convinced that girls sports just weren't as good and that's why they didn't get the attention that I think they deserved.

Conversly, I think that you have to look back before you can look forward. If you look back at women's sports--there was a time when it was rare for women to be athletes, now it's common. Women's professional sports were once unheard of and now that is changing. So, all that to say that there will, hopefully, be more uncommon than common to cover women's sports in the media. To find more information on this, you might want to try the Women's Sports Foundation--800-227-3988. There are two other places that you should try, too--Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sports at the University of Minnesota--612-625-3870; 612-626-7700.

For your report, I think it's important to keep in mind that feminism isn't only about ensuring that women can do what men can do and vice versa, but changing the floor all together or changing the way we do things. In that vein--proposing that all athletes don't make soooooo much money or that they aren't driven by corporate sponsors. However, we can't change this until we are at an equal place. For instance, we can't insist they make less--until women have the same opportunity to make the same.

Also, Media is certainly the key to the persective on this. So we would need for them both to cover it and to cover it accurately. For instance, women's sports need to get equal converage to men's sports--and not be framed in the context of "girls" sports. Does that help at all? Write back if you need me to clarify of if you need more information - thanks/good luck.

—Amy