If you are not a female athlete at Milford High School you may have never thought about it. In articles, announcements, verbally, everywhere possible they are referred to as the “Lady Mavs.”

When asked about the female sports teams at Milford being referred to as the “Lady Mavs,” Sophomore on the Varsity Volleyball Team, Mya Zeese said “I feel that it is annoying. We should all just be the ‘Mavs.’ We are supposed to be one, not two separate parts.”

Junior golfer Mackenzie Hewitt agrees.

“I think it is demeaning and disrespectful and I don’t know why we have to be separated and singled out as ladies,” said Hewitt. “It makes us sound like we aren’t true athletes. It makes us seem weak,” she continues.

Overall, the majority opinion is that your Milford female athletes don’t appreciate the title and find it demeaning to all their hard work.

“They don’t get equal recognition even though some of our female teams do better than our male teams,” said Hewitt. “The male teams are more well known and supported.” Although the support for female teams has definitely increased in the last few years, it is still not even close to equal.

“It would be really cool if we got the same amount of fans as football,” said Morgan Phipps, a freshman on the Varsity Volleyball Team.

In the collegiate athletic world the division of opportunities and scholarship dollars is sadly still not equal, according to the women’s sports foundation.org. Even though 57 percent of college students are female, female athletes only have 43 percent of the opportunities to participate in sports at NCAA schools. This totals 63,241 fewer spots than their male counterparts. Although the gap has decreased, the amount of scholarship money is still not divided equally. Male athletes still receive 55 percent of NCAA college scholarship dollars (division I and II), which leaves only 45 percent for women

In professional sports, females are not getting even close to equal pay as their male counteparts. For winning the 2015 Women´s World Cup, the U.S. Women’s National Team won $2 million. On the other hand the U.S. Men’s team finished 11th in the 2014 World Cup and collected $9 million. Paying men more for playing the same sport gives women less incentive to push themselves and discourages future females, including some at Milford High School, from participating in the sport.

The women’s sports teams at Milford are more than worthy of your support. They work like crazy and deserve just as much support as the men’s teams. Let’s start the process of bringing gender equality to sports by making a simple change: it’s time to drop the “Lady” and realize that we are all “Mavs.”