Beyond the Blame Game: When Patriarchy Outpaces Progress in India

While for some the battle begins when the whistle blows, for others it's all at home. India, a country home to hundreds of millions of women, often goes underrepresented in female categories across international sports. This draws quick criticism, with commentators and policymakers frequently citing inadequate facilities, funding, or a lack of interest as the primary reasons to blame.

Illustration by The Geostrata

Rarely does anyone address the rigorously implemented gender norms and patriarchal structures that continue to thrive in Indian society. The killing of Radhika Yadav, an aspiring tennis coach, shot thrice by her father, serves as a stark reminder of the Indian system of systematically inhibiting women's participation from the grassroots. This article dives deeper into entrenched patriarchal norms that undermined the aspirations of several generations of female athletes in India.

ENTRENCHED PATRIARCHIAL BARRIERS

Even as India builds a bigger profile in international sports, its female participation is woefully limited, undermined by the entrenched values of patriarchy. Studies have validated that only 43% of Indian women reach the recommended levels of physical activity, with numbers even more reduced when girls go from adolescence to young adulthood (the most vulnerable age for athletes), corralling towards a sport. The gap extends to gender, beyond just pure opportunity and into the stereotypical societal norms that continue to place a higher priority on traditional roles.

The expectation of modesty, domestic responsibility,  and obedience in Indian family life and communities can seriously reduce the potential for girls to explore sports as a serious pursuit. This discouragement leads to limited encouragement and funds for women athletes at the grassroots level, because sports do not fit into these prescribed roles.

While government programs like the Khelo India Initiative and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao have aimed to open up sports for women with the support of scholarships, our traditional rituals are going to take some time getting completely phased out. Until these cultural taboos are decimated, attempts at bridging the gender disparity when it comes to sports will not just come up against a tougher challenge, but also completely choke the supply line of talent in India that could have then potentially been harnessed in its entirety.

VIOLENCE AND SYMBOLIC CONTROL

Throughout India, violence continues to be a grim reality and a powerful tool of control in preventing women from playing sports. As well as the more concrete, physical acts, there is also a structure of cultural violence, full of endless societal and familial watching and monitoring that challenges freedom and autonomy.

Women athletes are not just opposed by external structures in many communities, as much as they are by their own friends and family, all in the name of honor. This control takes the form of constraints on appearance, mobility, and social interaction that are framed as a way to preserve female modesty but end up preventing women from acquiring the same opportunities to train, play, or travel in sport.

It can be seen time and again that, solely due to the fear of social stigma or backlash, women leave their dreams for playing sports and also often hide their aspirations, which in turn results in high under-representation despite having talent.

Physical violence against women in sports is much rarer outside the public domain, but honor-based violence, emotional abuse, and coercion of women who want to take their sport seriously, be it life on court or track, or an attempt at a career in teaching sports. This is a context in which women's bodies are regulated, and public competition spaces for women worsen this particular patriarchal control.

GENDERED RESOURCE ALLOCATION

The skewed distribution of resources is still prevalent in Indian sports, and it runs deeper at the level of gender. Recent government and policy data tell us that only 35% of total funding for sport is dedicated to women's sports, with the remaining 65% going to men. There is a gender divide that spans prize money, sponsorship, training facilities, and international competition support, with men typically taking more of the share.

This inequity may be understood in light of feminist theory, which has a great deal to say about how sport institutions are instrumental in representing and reproducing wider gender hierarchies. This is reflected in the take advantage of limited sports infrastructure, professional coaching, and media coverage material supporting male athletes more often, some females are used to being sidelined (scored due to athleticism, based on propagated by femininity).

Briefly, Indian society has created a culture of long-term under-investment and on this investment base built the glass ceiling, in opportunities, career continuity, and in our international competitiveness.

Programs like Khelo India and the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) have tried to fill in financial gaps in the last decade, and funding for women's sports is slowly beginning to pick up. From 30% back in 2015, it is expected to be at around 37% by 2023.

However, the improvement is only incremental, and substantive parity has not been reached. One way of thinking about this is to invoke the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and his concept of symbolic capital: funding sports and being associated with them gives prestige and legitimacy; if investment in women's sport lags, so too do its consequences.

Tackling these pervasive patterns of gender inequality will take more than financial settlements; it means a sea change in the way women athletes are seen and valued. India needs to confront deep-rooted attitudes as well as the system of sports governance in order to create an environment that encourages and supports female talent from the grassroots all the way up to public initiatives.

THE DEVELOPMENT PARADOX

India finds itself in a unique conundrum when it comes to women in sport. Although government programs like Khelo India, Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), and a number of scholarships hint at boosting the growth of female athletes, a good percentage have started their careers relatively late, most often in their teens, which can seriously affect their longevity.

Reports have revealed that just 43% of women in India live up to the physical activity recommended levels, and even within that number, participation rates drop drastically during the crucial ages from 15 to 30.

This gap occurs in many countries, including India, and represents what sociologists refer to as a “Development Paradox”, that although there are policies and rhetoric around gender equality in sports, these efforts are counteracted by social norms, beliefs, and institutional characteristics.

In feminist social theory, this phenomenon is accounted for by structural violence and symbolic power. However, the power of patriarchal norms and gender roles of someone still holding women down make them reduces their ability to earn resources as well as autonomy, which they do everywhere, including sports. This can be seen through social reproduction, which was also mentioned by Pierre Bourdieu.

This is added to the findings of studies on Indian women athletes, which reveal that these are not simply financial and infrastructural barriers but deeply embedded psychological and social constraints too, which hinder them from continuing in sport long enough to pursue a professional career. 

The obstacles include resistance from families, social stigma on women's athleticism, and a dearth of female idols in sports administration. The paradox is even more exaggerated by the fact that the success of a few elite athletes is so apparent that it lulls people into feeling like they are doing better than they really are, while also masking the buffer course obstacles hindering their progress for many others.

CONCLUSION

In India, it is not just a fight for women in sports to get a fair chance to play; it has larger ramifications due to the challenges women face at various levels, whether societal or institutional. Genuine progress means the cultural and symbolic walls that relegate women to tracking invisible lines on other and adjacent fields must be torn down. Fighting these challenges is crucial as long-lasting social change, a level playing field, and promoting women in sport will be the only way that India can break free from its discriminatory past and create a sporting culture where both genders flourish.

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BY ANANYA SHUKLA

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