The world of sneakers has long been dominated by male athletic culture. The professional athletes who have signature sneakers are mostly men (with a handful of exceptions ) and their shoe lines are overwhelmingly designed by men. The sneakers are sold by companies in which men sit in the CEO chairs. Oftentimes, they're only made available in men's sizes.

Not surprisingly, sneaker culture is far from inclusive of women who get down with the hype and love their kicks. Yet female sneakerheads -- women who seriously love and collect sneakers -- are a large and passionate base. They undoubtedly account for a large percentage of the sneakerhead culture that spent $1.1 billion on shoes last year, as Matt Powell of The NPD Group recently estimated. And they're a driving force behind what has become an estimated $5 billion market cap for women's sneakers.

Nevertheless, they remain underserved. One simply needs to take a look at social media, like that of sneaker influencer Anna Bendiones dope Instagram or writer and stylist Megan Ann Wilsons editorial and stylistic choices to get the sense that women sneakerheads are here and theyre spending money -- even without products and companies catering specifically to them. The way the culture stands, there's an extra layer of effort needed on the part of female sneakerheads that simply doesn't exist for men.

"Womens participation in sneaker culture is a not-yet-resolved issue," said Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator at Torontos Bata Shoe Museum and the woman responsible for the traveling exhibition, "Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture," which covers over 200 years of sneaker history and is now on view at the Brooklyn Museum through October .

150 of the most important pairs of kicks in the history of sneaker culture are viewable at the Brooklyn Museum through October.

"Many women," she added, "stand on the edges of sneaker culture and want to be fully integrated into it, but cant get the shoes in their size and theyre often criticized for it."

Semmelhack, a shoe historian who, in previous work, extensively studied the high heel as an icon of femininity, originally came up with the idea for a sneaker culture exhibition after people started to ask her why she only studied shoes in relation to women -- a question that was both peculiar and inspiring to her.

The absence of women from sneaker culture is partially why Semmelheck began looking at the trend in the first place. "It is so important to constructions of masculinity and so essential to male culture," she said. "I thought that was odd, given that we dont construct gender in society by men not wearing shoes and women wearing shoes." Sneakers, unlike traditionally gendered articles of clothing like neckties or skirts, are worn by all.

"I was also very interested in having people moving away from women are shoe crazy and [instead] look at how sneakers have been important specifically within mens culture," she said.

The exhibition contains approximately 150 pairs of sneakers ranging from OG Air Jordans, to the original 1917 Converse All-Star, to Kanye West's adidas Yeezy Boost 750.