Women in Olympics

PV Sindhu, Mary Kom, Bhavani Devi, Aditi Ashok, Rani Rampal and many more such brilliant and powerful women strike our minds when it comes to the Tokyo Olympics. Upon victory, banners are put up cheering the daughters of India, paraded with national flags and showered with rose petals. But soon, the mirage of celebration ends and the reality reflects itself.

Simply scrolling through any social media platform you would see innumerable posts acknowledging PV Sindhu’s win, and on the flip side, you would see a spike in the number of searches made to check her caste. In recent news, the family of Vandana Kataria, a member of the Indian Hockey team, was bombarded with casteist slurs and abuses by upper caste men after the team lost to Argentina. This year’s Olympics promised to be the first gender-balanced games in history, but how is it fair when Indian athletes have to face such scrutiny in their own country?

These athletes challenged the deep-rooted idea that women must be docile, demure, fragile, and are the ‘weaker sex’. Sports acts as the voice to liberate women and integrate people to look beyond gender, caste and colour.

Women worldwide have redefined femininity by participating in ‘manly’ sports like weightlifting, boxing and wrestling. They have triumphed not just in the boxing rings and tennis courts but also in thrashing the taboos and mindsets. The progress is slow and often backwards and it is high time we encourage more women to see sports as a career. Indian athletes have shown they have got the power time and time again, and we know when a woman takes charge, it’s either go big or go home!