#BreakTheBias in Women's Sports

It’s yet another International Women’s Day, a day when we celebrate ourselves, a day when we acknowledge the contribution of women, a day when we map the progress women have made…but also a day when we reflect on how little has changed and how much more needs to be done to #BreakTheBias. Biases, prejudices and discriminatory practices that creep into every sphere of a woman’s life from the time she is born and, at times, even before.

I look back at my sports career today and pick on just one sport I played - cricket - ?to find examples of the conscious and unconscious biases that women are confronted with. Below are just a few of what I was, in cricket parlance, ‘stumped’ with.

• When I was born, the third girl in the family, my father’s colleague sent him a telegram saying, “Congratulations. Wait for Number 4 to hand over the bat to.” The fourth, a boy, was born two years later and while he did play cricket for his school, it was I who went on to play competitive cricket at the national level.?
• When I started playing cricket, there were women who advised my mother to discourage me from playing cricket. I would get ‘black’ playing in the sun they said (notwithstanding the fact that I am dark-skinned) and it would be difficult for me to get a husband. By 24 I married a man of my choice to whom the colour of my skin made no difference.
• When I was in Grade VIII and having come to Bangalore from a little village in Andhra Pradesh where Telugu was my second language and Hindi my third, I failed in Hindi and was kept back a year. It was my sports that was a distraction, my faculty said, despite the fact that my achievements in sports were bringing the school laurels. I resolved to never again give my faculty an opportunity to blame sports for my academic performance and, from then on, worked hard to ensure that my sports achievements were matched by awards and ranks in academics right through to my post-graduation.?
• In my sports album are media reports of our sports tournaments that use language like ‘frail rocks’, ‘pretty tiny-tot’, ‘pint-sized’, ‘timid damsels’ to describe us women in sports. Many reports do not even spell my name correctly because someone, somewhere did not take the extra effort to check it.?

As a woman, there are many odds stacked up against you. As a woman in sports, there are even more. And when you are a woman in a predominantly ‘male’ sport like cricket, you can imagine how much harder it gets. We like to believe a lot has changed and while yes, things are seemingly changing for the better, it has not been at the same pace as it has for men. The huge disparity in pay between our men and women cricketers continues, our women cricketers still get to play far fewer tests in a season than our men, and media reports of women’s sports are still rife with discriminatory and sexist language.?

So, how can we all help female athletes rise and end gender disparity in sport? The organisers of International Women’s Day list out several ways to do so, including:

• Empower girls from a young age
• Equitable pay?
• Enjoy the game (watching women’s sports)
• Make your voice heard
• Support women’s teams (buy merchandise, get involved, etc)

There’s more that can be added – we need more women in sports administration, we need more women sports mentors, we need more women to design sports gear for women, and we definitely need more women in media and communication.?

As a communications professional, I am all too aware that just the fact of language and how one uses it can make a big difference. As Australia allrounder Jess Jonassen writes ?

“Language is so powerful and there are really simple changes that don't require much effort but have such a powerful message – something as easy as using 'chairperson' instead of 'chairman'.

When you hear people say 'the international summer of cricket is starting' ahead of the first men's Test in November, when we've already played a series, it makes you as a female athlete feel like what you do doesn't matter.”?

Let’s resolve today to #BreakTheBias where we can, when we can, every single day.