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"Simone Biles, na prova final da trave nos Jogos Olimpicos Rio 2016 Wikimedia Commons" by Fernando Frazao/Agencia Brasil via is licensed under CC0

The U.S. women's gymnastics team was shown laughing and talking at the 2016 Olympics. They had just blown away the other teams in an early round. An NBC announcer said, "They might as well be standing in the middle of a mall.”

Katinka Hosszu won a gold medal at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. She is a Hungarian swimmer. Announcer Dan Hicks praised her husband and coach. Hicks said her husband was responsible for the win.

Corey Cogdell-Unrein won a bronze medal in trapshooting. The Chicago Tribune called her the "wife of a Bears lineman" in a headline. The Chicago Bears is a football team. Her name and event were left out.

John Inverdale is a BBC radio and TV announcer. He called a women's judo match a "catfight." Later he was talking to British tennis player Andy Murray about his win. Inverdale had to be reminded about the success of U.S. tennis players Venus and Serena Williams. Each woman has four Olympic gold medals.

Two male Fox News announcers covered women's gymnastics. They talked about the athletes' makeup. Fox News announcer Bo Dietl asked why he should see someone's pimples. He said, "I like to see a person who wins that gold medal go up there and look beautiful."

These and other statements have grabbed attention. The 2016 Summer Games have become the center of heated talk. Some ask why women and girls are talked about differently than men and boys.

Equal Time But Unequal Treatment

The Olympics are one of the few times women's sports get equal coverage on television. In 2012, the Olympic Games in London were the first to have women in every sport.

In 2015, the University of Southern California studied coverage of women's sports. The study looked at the time spent on women's sports. The study found that the sports network ESPN has spent only 2 percent of its time on women sports, a rate that has not changed in 26 years. Los Angeles stations also showed few women's sports, the study found.

So perhaps it is understandable that sportscasters are under fire for how they talk about women. They have had very little practice.

A study from Cambridge University was released before the Olympics. It looked at millions of words from news articles, along with social media such as Facebook and others. It studied the words used about men and women in Olympic sports.

Men were found to be more often called "great," "strong" and "fastest." Women, however, were most often described with words that had nothing to do with sports. They were called "older," "pregnant," "married."

Rebecca Brooks works as a researcher in Los Angeles. She says such differences have been around for years.

"I would argue that sexism in Olympics coverage is nothing new," she says. Many of the same reporters have covered Olympic events for years, she said.

Why, then, has sexist language in coverage become a problem?

Social media may be the answer, experts say.

The Social Media Arena

James Furrer is a journalist. He teaches at Metropolitan State University in Denver, Colorado. Today, an announcer can get an instant reply on Twitter and Facebook, he said.

"People are ready to attack mistakes," said Furrer.

A.J. Marsden is a professor at Beacon College in Leesburg, Florida. She said younger people are quick to pick up on these things.

Several people who have been accused of sexist talk are a little older, Marsden says. They are not used to "being called out on this," she said. She added that she does not think they intend to be sexist.

She points out that sexism in coverage goes both ways.

One example was on NBC. Its TV news stars Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager appeared with taekwondo athlete Pita Taufatofua. Kotb and Hager smoothed coconut oil on Taufatofua on television.

Cosmopolitan magazine also got called out. It ran photos of male Olympic athletes wearing tight shorts.

Journalist Lindy West wrote an article for a British newspaper. She offered tips on writing about female athletes.

She said they should spend less time on females' looks and age. More time should go to the strength they have shown in years of training, she said.

Progress

Meanwhile, not all the news about Olympics coverage is bad. Female athletes are speaking up for themselves.

U.S. gymnast Simone Biles is 19 years old. She won four gold medals and a bronze. She said that her wins should not be compared to those of male athletes.

"I'm not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps," she said. "I'm the first Simone Biles."

Glossary

announce (n) -to give public notice, or first notice of; to make known; to publish; to proclaim

praise (v) - commendation, thanks, props

coverage (n) - the amount of space or time given to an event in newspapers or on television

pregnant (adj) - carrying developing offspring within the body

sexist (n) - a person who discriminates on grounds of sex, someone who practices sexism