Behind every successful sportswoman is a man

The Devil’s Advocate, serving you a cocktail of humour, wit and sarcasm

I bumped into Xena, my favourite fourth-wave feminist, while jogging in the park. She was jogging too, and I joined her in the jog, looking forward to a robust discussion with her, after, as usual.

Flushed (pun intended) with the success of installing a unisex toilet in her council library, Xena was on a campaign to removing the letters “men” from words such as women, menstruation, menopause etc. “What are men doing in a woman’s world?” is her current battle cry.

Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks and stared furiously at a group of girls playing soccer. “What’s up?” I asked her. Xena fumed, “Why is a man coaching these girls?”.

“Maybe he is the best person for the job?” I spoke. I could also see, from the corner of my eyes, a personal trainer, a man, putting a bunch of women through the paces and hoped Xena hadn’t noticed this too.

She sneered. “This is not coaching but mansplaining. Why are men telling women how to do things? Why are men getting involved in women’s sports? The majority of coaches for women’s teams are men, around the world. Why shouldn’t women be coaching women’s sport teams? This is yet another example of patriarchy, misogyny and sexism”.

She continued. “The coaches for the Indian women’s cricket, basketball, badminton, swimming, tennis, boxing, athletics etc are all men. PV Sindhu, India’s best woman badminton player, has a male coach. Sania Mirza, the tennis star’s coach is her father. How patriarchal and patronizing! It gets worse. Saina Nehwal’s coach is her husband. How dare a husband tell his wife what to do! This is male chauvinism! The Bollywood box office hit movie, Dangal, celebrated patriarchy by showing how a father coached and turned his unwilling daughters into wrestlers”.

I objected. “How is it patriarchal? Men coaches are imparting & sharing their knowledge and experience of the sport with women. You should be head butting with the Taliban instead, who won’t even allow women to play”.

She challenged. “If a man can coach the Indian women’s cricket team, why can’t a woman be the coach of the Indian men’s cricket team?”.

“Who do you think will fit the bill?” I teased her.

Pat came the answer. “Anushka, the Bollywood wife of the India captain, Virat Kohli. She is knowledgeable in cricket, she attends all her husband’s cricket matches and award ceremonies as a WAG and as a wife, she has the moral right to tell her husband what to do. So, she could coach him and his team”.

Xena was on a rampage that day. “There is another injustice which is happening to women in sports. In this age of gender equality, why do we still have separate men and women categories? Women should be competing against men in all sports”.

I said, “You mean put a male boxer and woman boxer in a ring to see who gets knocked out? Get a male wrestler to grapple with a female wrestler? Are you aware of the “Battle of the Sexes” match in tennis? Karsten Braasch, a man, ranked 203 in the world beat both the women champions, Serena Williams and Venus Williams, in tennis matches”.

“There is at least one sport women will not allow men to play. Netball is women’s only game. In fact, recently, Queensland Suns Under-17 team, an all-boys netball team won a Queensland state title, on invitation, competing against female rivals, beating them 46-12. The boys were subjected to ugly abuse, bullying and were booed during the match”.

Xena changed the topic. “Why are women in sports treated as the weak sex? In tennis, for example, women play 3 games whereas men play 5 games in a match. Do men think that women don’t have the strength and stamina to last that long? In cricket, women play with smaller balls, lighter bats and the field is set smaller. Men think a woman cannot hit a four or six as hard or high as men can. It is demeaning to women.”

I comforted her. “You are right. Women are treated with kid gloves. Men’s tennis final match can go on for 5 hours whereas women’s final is done and dusted within an hour. But the women get paid the same prize money as the men. So, this is one area where men get paid less than women and there is no need for you to wage a gender wage gap war in tennis for women. In Indian cricket too, women players are paid the same money as the men players”.

I admitted. “There is one big advantage if women are coaches of women’s teams instead of men. There is a spate of allegation of sexual harassment by women athletes against male coaches. This can be totally eliminated if women are the coaches. Recently, Indian sports was rocked by serious allegations of sexual harassment and intimidation by the country’s leading women wrestlers, Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik, who jointly accused Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, of sexually exploitation. But the committee which was set up to investigate has reported back that the allegations could not be proved. Such a waste of time and resources!”

I wanted to ask Xena about the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports, but that is a powder keg to blow up on another day.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.

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