malinois - I tear my hair out at the lack of space in sports columns devoted to women's sport. We get the DT on a fairly regular basis and if you get 1 page out of 12 that is solely devoted to women in sport then it is an exceptional day.
My theories are that there are the old tired stereotypes of women aren't interested in sport and if they are they are bound to be happy to read about male sport whereas men obviously could never be interested in women's sport.
Then there is the other old chestnut that women just aren't as competitive as men . That has not been my experience of coaching men and women. Once they are engaged in a competition then both sexes are equally competitive. I think people have preconceived ideas about how men and women behave and it is "unseemly" for women to be agressive or competitive - something taught to both sexes from an early age. There is also the body image problem facing women. Muscles are not necessarily seen as attractive on a woman. I think that a toned/muscly body for a woman generally adds to her self-esteem as does focussing on a competitive goal.
There is also the participation aspect - less women participate in sport than men. Women in sport is on the rise massively as a result of Government grants, the 2012 Olympics. This would improve again if more coverage of inspirational sportswomen were shown and also if it was seen as a realistic choice for younger women and girls.
Coverage of sport is soo male focused though - even for those sports with participation from both sexes e.g. tennis, rowing, canoeing, athletics. The men's 100m is the blue ribbon event, women are judged/derided in tennis for what they wear and what they sound like on court (and in fact have different dress codes from men), rowing and canoeing do not have equal representation in sexes or events at the olympics (rowing has 2 less female events than male - 8 athletes less in total; canoeing is actually run over 500m for women and 1000m for men ). This list is endless in terms of sports biased towards men. All this could be changed by the media and the powers that be in those sports. How we get it changed I don't know. Leaning on the governing bodies for that sport could be one way. Write articles for local newspapers - they often want sports news to fill the pages.
I know JessinAvalon has something to do with this in Bristol which I am interested in (as I live there) so I'll try and find out a bit more from her.