Did you know that English rugby players beat the Kiwis this weekend? No, me neither. I'd also missed the fact that England had reached the finals of the last three World Cups. But then women's rugby tends not to make the news.
So why is anyone surprised that there are no women in the top 10 contenders to be the BBC Sports Personality of the Year? In a good year, women's sports coverage makes up just 5% of all sports media coverage, according to the annual study by the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation. So Rebecca Adlington and Keri-Anne Payne triumph in swimming but do we get proportionate coverage? And what about disciplines such as gymnastics, with its superstar Beth Tweddle.
Those in charge of sports TV and news coverage might argue that they are simply feeding a demand for a constant stream of male team sports such as football, rugby and cricket. But this isn't true. England Women's World Cup quarter final against France was watched by a peak audience of 3.2m in the UK and the final between USA and Japan was the most tweeted-about sporting event in history.
Never a gymnastics fan, I watched Beth Tweddle win gold at the 02 two years ago and couldn't believe how exhiliarating it was. My eight-year-old tried to tell her brother about it afterwards but he was too busy watching football on the TV. Research carried out in 2010 also shows that 61% of sports fans would like to see more women's sports. So why aren't they being covered? Money doesn't help. A report from the Commission on the Future of Women's Sport shows that only 0.5% of all sponsorship in the UK goes to women's sport.
Or it could be the fact that none of 27 "experts" contacted by the BBC to nominate the Personality of the Year were likely to be women. (The fact that "experts" at magazines such as Nuts and Zoo were consulted is scandalous.)
Less than 10% of sports journalists in Britain – writers, subs, photographers and broadcasters – are women, according to Sports Journalists Association research, a lower proportion than in any other area of journalism.
Does any of this matter? It does if you believe that sports coverage inspires us, particularly the young, to take part in sport. Evidence suggests it does – 61% of girls surveyed by the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation agreed that watching successful sports stars inspired them to get involved.
Sue Tibballs, chief executive of WSFF, says: "The sports-journalist lobby is increasingly out of step with public interest." For her, the silver lining is social media sites such as Twitter – active in criticising the BBC poll today.
Just one in 10 14-year-old girls do enough exercise to maintain their health, compared with one in five boys. So when the sports minister Hugh Robertson promises a "legacy" of greater participation in sports he could actually score a direct hit by showing girls that women compete in sport and win sometimes, too.
And let's hope that when he does, the BBC is listening.
