Sports for Indian women: From an anomaly to mainstream

I used to play badminton almost everyday in school, and was honestly pretty good at it. But I never went for a competition, or tried out other sports, even though I really wanted to do both. I don’t even have a proper reason for my reluctance back then, except that I just wanted to avoid getting teased by others. I had gone once for football trials, and the boys started laughing at me because I’m tiny and don’t “look sporty”, and that was that for football. Maybe, if I had a role model like Dutee Chand then, a young and prominent international athlete from Odisha, who is also the first ever openly LGBTQ+ Indian athlete, I would have at least given it a go.


I had gone once for football trials, and the boys started laughing at me because I’m tiny and don’t “look sporty”, and that was that for football. Maybe, if I had a role model like Dutee Chand then, a young and prominent international athlete from Odisha, who is also the first ever openly LGBTQ+ Indian athlete, I would have at least given it a go.


It is no secret that India is a male-dominated society, where internalized patriarchal norms still limit the growth of hundreds of thousands of women. However, while we strive towards equality and empowerment, we rarely ever hear that sports could be an effective means to achieve these. That is strange, considering the fact that sports are widely recognized as having a significant role in the overall development of strong personalities, confidence, leadership qualities, good mental health, as well as promoting discipline, a healthy competitive spirit, and a team-oriented attitude. These are all virtues that we want to see in a person, but somehow, sports are a ‘masculine’ concept, and even if a woman excels at them, society finds a way to attribute their success to a man – a coach, a role model, the athlete themselves being masculine…and what not. When it comes to representation, we can see that only 5 Indian women have brought back an Olympic medal, or that popular media has tons of movies about male athletes like Bhaag Milkha, Paan Singh Tomar, or MS Dhoni, but only a handful about female athletes like Mary Kom, or the much less known and low-budget, Saandh ki Aankh. Even Chak De India, one of the most popular Bollywood sports movie, supposedly about India’s women’s hockey team, is centered around Kabir Khan, their male coach.


..considering the fact that sports are widely recognized as having a significant role in the overall development of strong personalities, confidence, leadership qualities, good mental health, as well as promoting discipline, a healthy competitive spirit, and a team-oriented attitude. These are all virtues that we want to see in a person, but somehow, sports are a ‘masculine’ concept, and even if a woman excels at them, society finds a way to attribute their success to a man – a coach, a role model, the athlete themselves being masculine…and what not.


For girls in India, where we have a skewed sex-ratio and families that don’t even enroll their girls in school, sports seem like a distant fantasy. The fact that family-imposed constraints are often even bigger than a person’s actual interest or skill in a particular sport, just further emphasizes the need for breaking these society-imposed barriers and thus opening up the Indian mindset to let go of these outdated gender roles of the “ideal” woman – the delicate, passive, and submissive woman. Of course, easier said than done. Conservative households aren’t always willing to give up their traditions and long-held perceptions, however, financial benefits to excelling in sports, both, in the form of prizes and scholarships, and in the form of boosting employability, could potentially increase the ‘value’ of the girl, and encourage them to let them engage in sports.


Women are even accused of losing their femininity if they indulge much in sports, often being nicknamed a ‘tomboy’. We live in a society with ‘fair and lovely’ is ruling the market, whereas what we need to be promoting self-love, sense of ownership of our bodies, and a belief that we can accomplish whatever we want, and sports really can go a long way in achieving that.


The next barrier is the consciousness in the girls themselves, the feeling that they are not ‘meant’ to be athletes, especially in front of an audience. It’s not their fault that they feel this way, it’s the society that we all live in, where women are taught to look and behave in a certain way, and sports are correlated with masculinity. Women are even accused of losing their femininity if they indulge too much in sports, often being nicknamed a ‘tomboy’. We live in a society with ‘fair and lovely’ ruling the market, whereas what we need to be promoting self-love, sense of ownership of our bodies, and a belief that we can accomplish whatever we want, and sports really can go a long way in achieving that. To tackle this consciousness, I realized as house captain during high school, the challenging task of recruiting girls for sports competitions was actually not that daunting, as most of them just needed to be convinced once, and they would enjoy it so much that they would become regulars on the field. It was just all about that first push, someone convincing them to believe in themselves.


India definitely needs more women in sports, and for this, I believe that grassroots initiatives like the one by CSR are much well-suited, and more sustainable in the long run. Such initiatives increase women’s social interactions, along with their confidence, self-esteem, and self-valuation. Along with bringing a sense of purpose to these women, extra income would increase their say in the affairs of the household (empowerment!).


Basically, we have to aim for the mainstream. So mainstream that women getting into sports, deciding to compete, or winning medals, doesn’t have to mean that they are breaking societal norms, but is just an addition to an already long list. Or, when a person like Saakshi Malik wins an Olympic Medal, she doesn’t have to be compared to Sultan, a fictional male character. It is not about fame or international success, it is simply about women finally breaking free from their restrictive roles and becoming independent. For this purpose, India definitely needs more women in sports, and for this, I believe that grassroots initiatives like the one by CSR are much well-suited, and more sustainable in the long run. Such initiatives increase women’s social interactions, along with their confidence, self-esteem, and self-valuation. Along with bringing a sense of purpose to these women, extra income would increase their say in the affairs of the household (empowerment!). Eventually, I strongly believe that in a reality where women in sports in mainstream, we would finally be free of the rigid, and very outdated, gender roles and norms in the Indian society, after all, to quote the trailer for the U-17 FIFA women’s world cup, “the ground knows no gender”.

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