• Girl Power
Sep 28, 2012 7:30 AM EDT
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29 Reasons Why Girl Power Is Back
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3. Women won the lion's share of Olympic medals — Want to see something awesome? The U.S. women's Olympic team won 29 gold medals and 58 medals in all during these past London Games (the boys won 17 and 45, respectively). We don't want to set this up to seem like a girls-versus-boys brawl, but instead, we want to see this as the happy result of a few institutional changes; due to the opportunities granted through Title IX, a shift in "girls don't play sports" mentality, and loads of inspiring female role models encouraging young girls to pursue sports, we've come to cheer on mega-talented women like Gabby Douglas, Missy Franklin, Sanya Richards-Ross, Kerri Walsh Jennings, and Misty May-Treanor.

Photo: David Fisher/Rex/Rex USA