A sporting chance?
When writing on sports events one always gets the niggling feeling that women are underrepresented. For every 10 male athletes/sportspersons Parsiana may write about, only one woman will similarly feature. This year, of the nearly 122 sportspersons we covered, around 111 were males and only 11 females. This includes teams (such as the cricket team that played at Lords) where the players are all men. While females have notched up impressive records and wins, their numbers remain marginal. Is this one more inbuilt bias against girls/women or are the causes more deep-rooted?
Women have to juggle professional and family responsibilities. They have to drop and fetch their children to and from school, classes, tuitions and extracurricular activities. They have to attend to household chores, oversee/cook meals, manage the domestic help, if they are fortunate enough to have any.
No doubt, many men may share/shoulder some of the domestic responsibilities. But still more men are able to indulge in their favorite sports, either as spectators or participants. The first Parsi men’s cricket team visiting England in 1886 allegedly comprised "rich gentlemen from Bombay, who have come over here for their own amusement," cited Prashant Kidambi in his book Cricket Country: The Untold History of the First All India Team. But no similar women’s team followed. Even in some co-educational schools in Bombay, girls are either excluded or discouraged from participating in cricket, but not so boys.
In H. D. Darukhanawala’s classic Parsis and Sports published in 1935, of the 240 pages which carry photos in the 488-page book, around 217 are of men and approximately 23 of women. The first woman features on page 136. Some of these women are not athletes but patrons or wives of patrons. The women are predominantly swimmers from the Golwala Brothers’ Victoria Swimming Bath, The Bombay Skating Class run by Darukhanawala, tennis, physical culture leagues, etc. A few advertisements feature women and a handful are listed among the "patrons" of the book. Women featured more like an appendage.
Even as spectators, men out-number women. The crowds drawn to watch matches on television/large screens at pubs and outdoors attract more men. It’s possible, in a charged environment, fueled further by alcohol, women may not feel comfortable. As it is women face sexual harassment while using public transport, walking on roads, dining in restaurants, the list is endless.
But in countries such as Iran where consumption of alcohol would be prohibited, women till recently were barred from watching live soccer matches. Now they are permitted in limited numbers. In Pakistan, women were forbidden to run in public. The former Indian women’s cricket team captain Diana Eduljee who was "part of the first ever Indian women’s team who played their first Test match against the West Indies in 1976," (thequint, January 2017) often complained about the stepmotherly treatment meted out to women players, even terming the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) "a male chauvinist organization... They never wanted women to dictate terms...It is very difficult for (some BCCI members) to accept the fact that this (women’s) team has done very well," the 63-year-old former railway employee stated at an event organized by The Indian Express group in August 2017, according to ESPNcricinfo.
From cricket to football to tennis we hear of women sportspersons being paid less than men. Some US women’s soccer team members filed a Federal lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation (USSF) alleging "institutionalized gender discrimination." The Federation denied the accusation and said they paid women more. Molly Levinson, a spokeswoman for the players, in a statement to the Associated Press that appeared in the Denver Post of July 29, 2019, termed the response "A sad attempt by the USSF to quell the overriding tide of support the US women’s national team (which won the Women’s World Cup final soccer match between the US and The Netherlands on July 7, 2019 in France), has received from everyone...
"For every game a man plays on the men’s national team he makes a higher base salary payment than a woman on the women’s national team. For every comparable win or tie his bonus is higher. That is the very definition of gender discrimination."
If women sportspersons in the US face discrimination, one can imagine the equivalent status of women in India where a girl child is often despised. And especially in the Parsi community where gender bias is institutionalized. Forget religious discrimination, even social organizations such as the Dadar Parsi Gymkhana and the Ripon Club deny women full membership. They can be associate members denying them the right to attend the annual general meeting and to vote. The Dadar Gymkhana has a sports ground though the club is frequented more by card playing men, while the Ripon Club has a billiards/snooker table, used occasionally.
The All Zoroastrian men and women arm-wrestling tournament held every year at the Parsee Gymkhana grounds at Marine Drive saw 27 male participants and seven women this year. The paucity of female participants results in the women having to compete with one another regardless of weight and age. If one knows one cannot win because the opponent’s weight is more or she is older/younger, the incentive to participate lessens. But the organizers have to be congratulated for including girls/women in the sport.
In Bombay the Zoroastrian Premier League (ZPL) organized men’s football matches in April this year. Even though women were among the organizers, no similar women’s league was formed. According to ZPL co-founder Zaara Dastur, "Women were allowed to play and register for ZPL… We had a couple of women registrants. Sadly we do not have enough women in the community who play to form a separate league."
In the south Gujarat town of Udvada, where a Parsi Gymkhana once existed, remains a barren piece of sea fronting land. A lone trustee has reportedly turned down proposals to nominate other trustees. Where is the great sporting heritage of the community that once produced such fine athletes and at least half a dozen Test playing cricketers?
Indian women’s rugby team captain Vahbiz Bharucha, 25, a physiotherapist by profession, told Scroll (August 5, 2019), "I have two brothers and there was absolutely no discrimination between us. For instance, if a heavy item had to be picked up, my father (Boman, a sportsman) would call all three of us instead of asking only the boys... I was never told to choose a soft sport or forced to take the toy meant for girls. He...didn’t allow any gender discrimination." Her mother, Armin, is a homemaker "and the reason I’m so healthy," she told Parsiana (May 21, 2017).
Perhaps therein lies one possible solution for Parsi sportswomen. Institu-
tionalized and familial discrimination being supplanted by support and concern.