I think that increasing women's involvement in both types of sports is an important goal. Moreover, I see a strong connection between them. I have a feeling that a higher salience of women in competitive sports might locate women's involvement in physical activity in a healthier realm.

Now here's a bit of a personal rant. The female-body-obsessed society has turned the world of female fitness into an industry whose sole goal is the improvement of women's body shape, and to be precise - making it conform to the unrealistic standard of fitness. This is evident in many lines of activity and promoted by the advertisements of different methods. What doesn't help much is that the types of physical activities women in Western society are exposed to as the profitable, visible, salient ones, are ones which promote extreme figures in terms of thinness: artistic gymnastics and ballet. I have no problem with these fabulous activities, both of which of course involve strength, determination and often teamwork. But social perceptions of body image make it easy to look at these sports through a single-dimensional prism, namely, that of thinness and shape.

I think that having something like women's basketball or football more readily available as a model of physical excellence would promote values that would balance the ones involving the fitness industry. The advantages would be the women with normal weight and a less than thin figure can draw inspiration from them which would not be mixed with despair. Unfortunately, not many ideals of this sort are promoted by the media; it'd do us all a lot of good if there were more.