Playing for Parity in an Unequal Arena
A world of
discrimination and the resolve to fight back
Mumbai : For
sportswomen, the battle doesn’t end in the playground. They have to fight many
more outside: for better infrastructure, pay parity, recognition — just to name
a few. Being a woman in sports brings that extra societal pressure as well.
This was the common sentiment expressed at a panel
discussion at The Economic Times Women’s Forum, where three sportswomen who are
champions on their own right talked about their experience and how they are
fighting back. “We have faced patriarchy all our lives,” said Supriya Devgun,
the reigning badminton national champion in women’s doubles and mixed doubles
in the 40-plus category.
Devgun, who cofounded Evolution Sport and Badminton
Gurukul comprising training academies in several cities, said getting projects
was challenging, because the decision-makers were all men and people would say
you bagged it not because of merit but because you were someone’s favourite.
“But we are sportswomen and we have never learnt to lose,” she said.
Prashanti Singh, a national basketball player who was
conferred with Arjuna Award in 2017, and Aanchal Thakur, an alpine skier who
won India’s first-ever international medal in skiing in January 2018 were the
other panellists at the discussion.
All three reiterated that India needed a conducive environment
where more women join in as sports administrators, coaches and that there was
more media coverage for the games where women play.
“I won an Arjuna Award but who knows about the 15
years prior to that and about the years of hard work that my family and I had
to put in,” said Singh. Women in sports are often ignored, but that isn’t
something limited to India, she said. She has an example to prove it: “There
are no jerseys of woman basketball players in showrooms abroad, but there are
many of men.”
The women traced back the battles they had to fight
when it came to their sports getting recognised.
Thakur, whose first tryst with skiing was when her
brother made her a pair of wooden skis when she was five years old, said many
in India didn’t know that such a sport existed. “There are many who ask me what
I play and when I say skiing, they say they skate as well,” she said.
Pay parity was a common theme during discussions at
the Women’s Forum, but that seemed to be a larger issue in sports.
“After so many years, I cannot bargain for my
contracts the way a young basketball male player can,” said Singh.
Of course, there are policies aimed at encouraging
woman athletes, but those need to be executed more effectively and percolate to
the ground level, they said. “Invest money to bring in the medals and not wait
for the medals to invest in the game,” said Devgun.
Another view made during the discussion was to narrow
down the number of sports in which India competes so as to ensure more focus to
each of those remain. “See from which sports the champions are emerging. All
stakeholders have to come together,” Devgun said.
Devina.Sengupta
ET19MAR18
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