Many women reporting on sports in the media have done an incredible job shining a light on the truth regarding the intersection of sports and sexual assault and violence against women. Four women in particular have been unrelenting in their quests to hold those in charge accountable for the systematic mistreatment of women by athletes, some even using their own experiences to better empathize with survivors in their coverage. While women are largely shut out of ESPN’s coverage of these issues, these women deserve recognition for their unique perspectives and insightful commentary.

Jessica Luther

Jessica Luther has written extensively on how rape culture intersects with sports, especially at the collegiate level. In her book, Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape, Luther outlines what she calls the “playbook" of how universities and their athletic departments respond to cases of domestic violence or sexual assault, and she creates a new one for addressing sexual assault and college football. Writing for The Dallas Morning News, Luther states, “The first play in this new playbook has to be about consent, because we just don't talk about it enough. Honestly, it's hard to imagine that we could talk about it too much.”

Luther also outlined her own struggles as a Florida State football fan in navigating “the overlapping of football culture and rape culture,” after a female student said quarterback Jameis Winston raped her, writing in Rewire:

Football culture clouds our ability to see him as anything other than a famous kid with a nice-guy persona and amazing athletic skills. Rape culture demands that we mistrust the victim, question her credibility, and try to poke holes in her story. It creates this familiar narrative in which people who have invested their own hopes and dreams in Winston claim his innocence immediately and refuse to hear anything else.

Luther’s innovation and public soul-searching make her an invaluable reporter in this area.

Amelia Rayno

Amelia Rayno, now a features writer for Minneapolis’ Star Tribune, is a former sports reporter who invoked her own experience to strengthen the newspaper’s coverage of sexual assault and sports. After Norwood Teague, the University of Minnesota athletic director, resigned amid sexual harassment complaints, Rayno wrote for the paper about a time when Teague had harassed her. In the August 11, 2015, piece she explained:

Teague asked me about my longtime boyfriend, as he often did. My mistake was acknowledging that we had just broken up. The switch flipped. Suddenly, in a public and crowded bar, Teague tried to throw his arm around me. He poked my side. He pinched my hip. He grabbed at me. Stunned and mortified, I swatted his advances and firmly told him to stop. He didn’t.

“Don’t deny,” he said, “our chemistry.”

I told him that he was drastically off base, that my only intention in being there was as a reporter – to which he replied: “You’re all strictly business? Nothing else?”

I walked out. He followed me. I hailed a cab. He followed me in, grabbing at my arm and scooting closer and closer in the dark back cabin until I was pressed against the door. I told him to stop. I told him it was not OK. He laughed. When I reached my apartment, I vomited.

Later that night he texted: “Night strictly bitness.’’

Rayno called the accounts from women who said Teague harassed them “troubling,” “gross,” and “more of the same, all over again.” Rayno’s ability to write about her personal experience as a survivor of sexual harassment to empathize with others and give a deeper account of the story makes her writing on this issue especially important.

Katie Nolan

Katie Nolan of Fox Sports has been one of the most outspoken advocates for women in all of sports media. In October, Nolan slammed the NFL and the New York Giants for taking more action against a player who abused a kicking net than against John Brown, a Giants player who admitted in his journal that he had physically and emotionally abused his wife. Nolan called on the league to “get serious” about addressing domestic violence and encouraged officials to adopt a policy where players must participate in counseling and support programs.

Nolan has also called out a lack of agency among women in sports media, saying in a 2014 video:

KATIE NOLAN: Women in sports television are allowed to read headlines, patrol sidelines, and generally facilitate conversation for their male colleagues. Sometimes, they even let us monitor the internet from a couch. And while the Stephen A. Smiths, Mike Francesas, Dan Patricks and Keith Olbermanns of the world get to weigh in on the issues of the day, we just smile and throw to commercial.

Nolan also criticized journalists who asked Dallas Cowboys player Greg Hardy, whose girlfriend said he strangled her, if he found particular women “attractive,” saying they failed to “act with just a shred of human decency.” Nolan’s insightful commentary and willingness to call out the media’s role in normalizing violence against women makes her work impactful.

Julie DiCaro

Chicago-based journalist Julie DiCaro has done strong work highlighting sexual assault and reporting on the ways female sports journalists are targeted online. DiCaro has written about her own sexual assault and said it helped her understand the struggles survivors go through, writing for HuffPost:

I don’t know what happened between Jameis Winston and his accuser. I do know that, after a woman is raped, the prospect of a police interrogation and cross-examination second-guessing your behavior is paralyzing frightening. So frightening in fact, that many of us choose to keep quiet. And I know that every time we see one of these “we can’t prove it” press conferences, it confirms what many of us believe: That unless there are severe injuries and/or witnesses to your rape, you might as well not even bother reporting it.

DiCaro was also one of the two women behind a 2016 viral video which highlighted the barrage of sexual harassment and threats women in sports journalism face on a daily basis, especially online. DiCaro’s empathy and willingness to bring unsavory issues to the forefront makes her a valuable voice in sports journalism.

Correction: This piece was updated to correctly identify Julie DiCaro's work affiliation.