It’s been 39 years since Title IX gave women the right to play sports at any publicly-funded school. Through all the trials and tribulations, one question still needs to be asked.

How badly do female student-athletes want to be treated as equals?

Women’s athletics have made great strides since 1972, but it takes just one glance at an NIU game program to see this university still prefers to treat women as self-conscious girls instead of true athletes.

The weight of female student-athletes are not listed on the rosters of any women’s sports teams at NIU. The Huskies aren’t unique either. I’ve looked over hundreds of women’s rosters, and not one has listed the weight of its student-athletes.

It would be presumptuous to assume that not a single school lists the weight of its female athletes. It is safe to assume, however, that the majority of schools intentionally neglect to list weight on rosters.

It’s no secret that women prefer not to talk about their weight. In fact, it might be the only thing I know for sure about women.

This country has created an image of the perfect woman that is hard to escape for any college-aged female. And the last thing I want is for student-athletes to develop eating disorders over their weight being listed on an easily-accessible roster.

While it is perfectly understandable why a female student-athlete cringes at the thought of their weight being listed, it is vital to the progress of women’s sports that it is.

If the female student-athletes are more worried about how their weight is perceived than how their game is, can the argument really be made that they deserve the respect they have fought so hard for?

From a game-planning standpoint, listing the weight of players is clearly a positive. Any coach worth their weight (pun definitely intended) would prefer to know the weight of the players on the opposing team.

Say for example that an opposing team lists a player at 6-feet-2-inches. Now, without knowing the weight of that player, a coach is left to guess whether the student-athlete is a string bean or an unmovable object.

Game film can take away the guessing game, but what about the times when film isn’t an option? In tournament play, teams are often expected to play an unfamiliar team on short notice.

Obviously, there would be some drawbacks to listing weight on a roster. During high-profile women’s basketball games, fans would have an easy insult if they knew the weight of the women on the court. The only problem with that logic is that all serious student-athletes hear taunts. While at Duke, J.J. Redick constantly heard sexually-charged taunts about his younger sister and mother. And if he could let those roll off his shoulders, I think a simple-minded fat joke can be ignored by female student-athletes.

Women could undoubtedly give me a thousand reasons why listing weight on rosters is a bad idea. I, on the other hand, can offer only one real reason why it would be a good thing.

Respect.