米国では、全アスリートの約40％を女性が占めているにもかかわらず、スポーツメディアで取り上げられる女子アスリートはわずか4％に過ぎません。メディアの取り上げ方を見ても、ESPN（スポーツ専門チャンネル）の看板番組「SportsCenter」が女子スポーツに割く放送時間は2％未満、地方局でも番組の5％といった具合です。毎年発行される「水着特集」を除けば、スポーツ・イラストレイテッド誌の表紙に採用される女性もわずか4.9％にとどまっています。
スポーツメディアにおける女性の存在感はなぜこうも薄いのでしょうか。スポーツ・イラストレイテッド誌の記者、アンディ・ブノワは女性のスポーツは「見るに値しない」と発言して後に謝罪しましたが、これは一般的な認識の一例に過ぎません。連邦政府の財政援助を受ける教育プログラムにおいては、性差別を禁止する米国法「タイトルIX＊」をめぐる混乱もあるようです。女子のスポーツへの参加率が男子より低いのは、果たして関心の有無の問題でしょうか。機会の不平等はない、といいきることができるでしょうか。本書はさまざまな情報源にあたりながら、女子スポーツの障壁となっている誤解や不平等について、その歴史や背景も併せ明らかにしていきます。コンパクトながら、ジェンダー、セクシュアリティ、性差別、オリンピック・パラリンピック、メディア報道、スポーツと健康の関係など、幅広い観点から考察し、女子スポーツは観るだけでなく、実際にプレーに参加し、応援する価値があるものだと述べています。
＊米国の公的高等教育機関における男女の機会均等を定めた連邦法の教育改正法第9編
    

• A highly accessible overview of the history, development, and current landscape of women's sports
• Explores a variety of subjects such as transgender issues in sport, Title IX, Women in the Olympic and Paralympic Games, sex testing and sex segregation
• Focuses not only on U.S. sports but sports worldwide, highlighting milestones in the history of women's athletics

 
Although girls and women account for approximately 40 percent of all athletes in the United States, they receive only 4 percent of the total sport media coverage. SportsCenter, ESPN's flagship program, dedicates less than 2 percent of its airtime to women. Local news networks devote less than 5 percent of their programming to women's sports. Excluding Sports Illustrated's annual "Swimsuit Issue," women appear on just 4.9 percent of the magazine's covers. 
   
Media is a powerful indication of the culture surrounding sport in the United States. Why are women underrepresented in sports media? Sports Illustrated journalist Andy Benoit infamously remarked that women's sports "are not worth watching." Although he later apologized, Benoit's comment points to more general lack of awareness. Consider, for example, the confusion surrounding Title IX, the U.S. Law that prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program that receives federal financial assistance. Is Title IX to blame when administrators drop men's athletic programs? Is it lack of interest or lack of opportunity that causes girls and women to participate in sport at lower rates than boys and men? In Women's Sports, Jaime Schultz tackles these questions, along with many others, to upend the misunderstandings that plague women's sports. 
   
Using historical, contemporary, scholarly, and popular sources, Schultz traces the progress and pitfalls of women's involvement in sport. In the signature question-and-answer format of the What Everyone Needs to Know® series, this short and accessible book clarifies misconceptions that dog women's athletics and offers much needed context and history to illuminate the struggles and inequalities sportswomen continue to face. By exploring issues such as gender, sexuality, sex segregation, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, media coverage, and the sport-health connection, Schultz shows why women's sports are not just worth watching, but worth playing, supporting, and fighting for.