Ultimate Sports Parent Radio interviews Nancy Lough, professor at University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), who focuses on gender equity in sports, explains why more girls drop out of sports than boys. It's due, in part, to stereotypes about what boys and girls should be doing.She also describes how girls are becoming more actively involved in pushing for equal pay in professional sports.

Conduct pay audits routinely. Inequities can be addressed more easily when they are small. Over time, salary issues tend to grow when no audit is done to create awareness of inequities. Equal pay is mandated by federal law for equal work. This also means stop justifying discrimination. The U.S. Soccer Federation is the most visible example of this: Instead of addressing the pay inequity, they hired two lobbying firms to advocate for their position. This money could have been spent on addressing the pay inequity issue.

Nevada has always been a leader in breaking gender barriers, but gender equality gaps in the workforce still exist and equity is a continuing challenge. This week we’re discussing where Nevada stands in closing key gender gaps like equal pay and equal representation in areas such as science, the arts, sports, and executive leadership.

Shortly after the conclusion of the Women’s World Cup earlier this summer, a friend suggested to me that it signaled the long-awaited arrival of soccer as a mainstream sport in the U.S. I thought a second, remembering the commercials around the game and the way the television cameras shot the crowd. Then I responded that I thought it wasn’t really the long-awaited arrival of soccer, but the emergence of women’s sports into the mainstream of American culture.

For all of the claims that the N.B.A. (effectively the W.N.B.A.’s parent company) makes about women’s empowerment, the league disrespects its female athletes in multiple ways. Just as the unfair treatment of female soccer players has recently gotten attention, the situation in basketball deserves some, too.

Kayla McBride is not trying to be LeBron James.

The NCAA says no, but California may say yes

Hayley Hodson’s volleyball career took off when she was still in high school, with an invitation to compete on the U.S. Women’s National Team.