Freshman women’s basketball player Kaitlyn Dinkins agrees. “Obviously we work just as hard as the men do,” she says. “We are very conscious about being in shape and being muscular and toned, but I don’t think personally that female athletes would want it. It’s about not being too—I guess ‘manly’ is the term.”

Pappano, who wrote a book on gender disparities in athletics called “Playing with the Boys: Why Separate Is Not Equal in Sports,” agrees that fear of seeming masculine partly lurks behind women’s discomfort with seeing their weights posted in public.

“There’s a long history of efforts to feminize women’s athletics,” Pappano says. “They’re judged by a set of standards that men are not judged by.... They need to be physically attractive in a female way, and yet they need to also be athletic and strong. Culturally, socially, I think it only perpetuates the problem when we hesitate to list weights on rosters.”

Some are glad and others are resentful to see athletic departments make one fact private in the sphere of athletic performance, which is otherwise inherently public.

“Their bodies are on display,” Cappellini says. “If they’re not afraid to get in front of a crowd of 10,000 people at Harvard Stadium, why would they be worried about putting down their weight?”

— Staff writer Julie M. Zauzmer can be reached at jzauzmer@college.harvard.edu.