People magazine's latest edition features Team USA's star gymnastsSimone Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, Madison Kocian, and Laurie Hernandez. It celebrates their team gold medal(and utterdominance) in the Rio Olympics.The only problem'The main cover line describes themas 'America's sweethearts.' Pick up the latest issue of People magazine featuring the #FinalFive! A photo posted by USA Gymnastics (@usagym) on Aug 17, 2016 at 5:52am PDTon Aug 17, 2016 at 5:52am PDT These women didn't win goldbecause they're sweethearts.They did it because they are athletes. Hell, they're world champions. And yet, the publication chose to describe them using a favorite word of catcallers and patronizing bosses ' a word that pays exactly zerotribute to their intense commitment and athleticism.The poor word choiceis emblematic of sexist media coverage that female athletes often face. Sure, sexism in sports media issometimes inadvertent ' but its presence is undeniable, and the examples from the Rio games alone are astounding.When Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszuwon a gold medal and shattered a world record, the victory was attributed to her husband. When theChicago Tribune tweeted aboutmedal-winning trap shooter Corey Cogdell, they neglected to mention her name, referring to her instead asthe"wife of" alocal NFL player.And tennis player Andy Murray had to remind a reporter that he wasn't the first person to win two gold medals in Olympic tennis'Venus and Serena Williamsdid it first.Here's another head scratcher: Look at the way these two headlines were arranged after Katie Ledecky broke her own world record in the 800-meter freestyle.This headline is a metaphor for basically the entire world. pic.twitter.com/5WpQa04N0o' Nancy Leong (@nancyleong) August 14, 2016It comes as no surprise that a new Cambridge University study found hard evidence of this sexist bent in sports coverage. The study analyzed more than160 million words from newspapers, academic papers, tweets and blogs, andfoundmale athletesare three times more likely to be mentioned in a sporting context than female athletes,CNN reports. Female athletes, by contrast, are more often described bytheir marital status, age, or appearance.It's probably immenselyfrustrating for the athletes. And it's no wonder that whenSerena Williams was asked about being the "greatest female athlete of all time," she replied by saying:"I prefer [...] 'one of the greatest athletes of all time.'"The US women's gymnastics team has also been subjecttosexist coverageat the Rio games.When they were seen laughing and talking during the team final, a commentator said that the women "might as well be standing around at the mall." In an awkward interview with NBC last night,Bob Costas largely failed at asking Simone Biles and Aly Raisman about their gold- and silver-winning flour routines, instead steering the conversation to Biles' celebrity crush. Commentators have alsorepeatedlydescribed Biles'greatness by comparing her to male athletes. (Sheresponded bytelling a reporter, "I'm not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps.I'm the first Simone Biles.")But this People magazine cover line might take the cake.Biles and Team USA didn't endure years of grueling training and competition because they wanted to besweethearts. They did it because they wanted to be great athletes'and that's what they are. Let's celebrate them for that.Join the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: Here's why Olympic athletes bite their medals
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