In 2012, designer Wendy Fox was watching the London Olympics when she noticed something about the women athletes.
"I was really amazed by the physical diversity of the female athletes and how vastly they differ depending on the requirements of the sport," says Fox.
The Women's 100-meter hurdles at the 2012 Olympics in London. Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images.
Some of the fastest, strongest, most athletic, and inspiring women in the world don't have bodies that adhere to a societal ideal. They have bodies built for speed, agility, strength, and in short — kicking ass.
Fox decided to turn all 276 female gold medal winners into a poster of inspiration, perspiration, and representation.
Photo via Kickstarter/Wendy Fox.
You may know some of their names — like McKayla Maroney, Misty May-Treanor, and Serena Williams — but you probably haven't heard of most of them.
That might be because, according to a 25-year study, the coverage of women's sports in media is often shamefully small when compared to the coverage men's sports get.
In 2016, a little less than half of the athletes competing in the Olympics will be women. The most in history. So Wendy Fox is stepping it up.
She's turned to Kickstarter to help fund a poster and book filled with illustrations of every woman who wins gold in the Rio Olympics.
Photo via Kickstarter/Wendy Fox.
The goal is to inspire young girls — who will see accomplished women athletes held up as high as men often are — but also to help foster a worldwide interest in women's sports.
Women athletes are too often objectified and sexualized, with little attention paid to their athletic prowess.
A quick Google search for "female athletes" will yield a depressing amount of listicles containing the "hottest" or "sexiest" female athletes instead of anything remotely substantive.
Not to mention the fact that women in general are still held to absurd beauty standards and often judged for the way they look far more than their merits and accomplishments.
Serena Williams at Wimbledon 2016. Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images.
Just look at what happens over and over to Serena Williams, inarguably one of the greatest athletes of all time. She has to wade through absurd body-shaming controversies while she's busy doing awesome things like, I dunno, WINNING WIMBLEDON.
In her illustrations, Fox is careful to draw the athletes to scale, beautifully depicting the fact that all heights, builds, weights, and skin colors are capable of greatness.
"I would love for girls to look at this project and discover a sport that’s for them," writes Fox in her Kickstarter campaign, "especially a sport that they didn’t even know existed before and for them to make a conscious shift in their perception of what it is that their bodies are capable of."
Photo via Kickstarter/Wendy Fox.
So pay attention in Rio 2016, because the list of women champions is probably going to fill up fast. And if you pay closer attention, you'll see that champions come in all shapes and sizes.