For the past two weeks, the world has gathered around their televisions to catch the world's best compete for the gold. Hours upon hours of gymnastics, swimming, diving and soccer have been streamed across the globe. For many it ended in tears, but for a select few, it ended in victory. There have been so many hurdles (literal and figurative) they have leaped over successfully. The United States women's gymnastics team this year is probably the most diverse we have ever seen. Maritza Correia was the first female black swimmer to break an American record. And how can we forget Michael Phelps breaking the record for most Olympic titles that was previously held by an Olympic runner dating all the way back to the second century B.C.E. All these amazing things to celebrate and so much progress, yet I can't help but shake my head at some of these articles I'm reading and see being shared on social media. For every positive story I see regarding Rio, I see one that objectifies athletes. More specifically, male athletes.

There are countless articles that sway away from the athletes' amazing physical capabilities and hard work they put into the games to focus on "the best Olympic bulges," "thanking" whomever banned full body swim suits, ranking the best male gymnasts' abs or talking about oiled up bodies. These athletes have spent countless hours training for gold, and these articles are taking all that away. Yes, they have worked hard for their bodies to look the way they do, but it is not for everyone to gawk at. They train their bodies to DO something. They train to swim faster or to nail their routine on the uneven bars. Not to have people sit around talking about how great their bulge looks in their speedos.

Take a moment and really think about these articles and what they're doing. They take these athletes and show them only as objects to look at for our personal satisfaction. Now does this sound familiar? This is a very similar issue many women have been fighting against for years. Objectification in the media. It is a hurdle women are still working on overcoming with so much progress made. It is not time to take the issue and push it elsewhere.

There has been an incredible amount of backlash from women towards media platforms for taking female athletes' successes and putting them onto their husbands, such as the Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszu whose record-breaking successes were credited to her husband or Corey Cogdell-Unrein winning bronze in trap-shooting only to have her name replaced with "Wife of Bears lineman." I loved seeing so many people calling the media out for their poor coverage of women athletes, but we need to stand up for the men when necessary as well. Because if these articles focused on women's bodies or the "best butts of the Olympic games," there would be countless people in uproar. Just because men have objectified women's bodies for countless years does not make it okay to do it back.

This is an issue that seems to have been swept under the rug. I think we should all stop focusing on "Lochtegate" and talk about the real issues at hand.