By Priyanka Bajaj:
How many times have you actually watched any sport played by women in India on television? Even if you have, do you enjoy watching it as much as watching men play the same sport? Everyone is concerned about men’s cricket, football, basketball etc. The main problem is not the sport, not women, not men but media.
Women and sports are never publicized as much they should be. We know about the upcoming IPL matches because it’s all over the news, but we never come to know about women’s cricket World Cup, Kabbadi World Cup, Hockey World Cup etc. These matches are rarely shown on television because they hardly get sponsors. The question is why don’t they? Are they not good enough? Well that is not the case. Recently our women’s kabaddi team won the World Cup defeating Iran 25-19.
But how many of you were actually aware of that? We all know that last year around this time the Men’s cricket team had won the world cup. The media did highlighted this issue even after months.
But there are some women who have made their name in this industry beating the odds. While women like Sania Mirza, Saina Nehwal, Anju Bobby George, P.T. Usha and Mary Kom have earned a name for themselves, thousands of them are still in oblivion. Does anyone know who Mithali Raj is? In fact, recently a talented female archer had to sell her bow to make ends meet. If we could have nurtured her talent (and of the others), we might not perform so abysmally on the international sports platform. The truth is that a woman is thought of as a mother and not really eligible to play on the field. A sportswoman’s profession is seen more of an extracurricular. One expects her to go back home, cook and look after her children. Media, along with our society functions on this belief.
If media puts an effort and make the citizen of our country aware of women’s achievements in sports it will definitely raise the viewership for women’s sports in our country. Our media needs to come out of the patriarchal mindset to publicize women’s glory too. Women issues are talked about daily but sometimes, we want to take a backseat and enjoy what prestige women have been winning all around the world.
Image courtesy:Â http://www.crickblog.com/entry/2010-icc-world-twenty20-india-women-beat-pak-will-play-sl-for-semi-final-spot/