Women need to talk about sports - On the sport. Be part of it

UK’s Chartered Management Institute head Ann Francke wants sports banter at the workplace to be curtailed.

Speaking to BBC’s Today programme, Francke said that said sports banter can exclude women and lead to laddish behaviour such as chat about sexual conquests.

At a time when women are fighting for better representation in sports, Francke assessment that women don’t actually understand sports is bewildering and shows her complete ignorance on women in sports.

The 1900 Paris Summer Olympics had a mere 2.2% of women participating but for the Tokyo 2020 the numbers would be at 48.8%. The recent Winter Youth Olympics in Lausanne had the same number of events for women as men for the first time.

Phenomenal, as far as how far women have come in sports in recent years. But Francke like many others including the international cycling body (UCI) still seem to believe sports is not for the women.

The UCI is just one of few sports organisations that still fail to see the virtue equal representation. For Tokyo 2020 the UCI had allocated only 67 slots for the women as compared to the 130 for the men.

When the likes of Serena Williams (tennis), Fallon Sherrock (darts), Sarah Attar (athletics), Megan Rapinoe (football) and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (athletics) are continually breaking barriers in sports, radical feminism is not going to make the cut.

Francke’s convoluted argument that a large section of women do not follow sports and do not like to talk about it is incomprehensible when women are the face of many sports.

The issue is not about women do not like sports, but that women are being denied a fair deal in sports.

From unequal salaries to unequal representation, women have almost always had to play catch-up with the men on the playing field. And now people like Francke also want women to stop talking about sports.

But, it all seems fine when men are allowed to not only talk about what women should wear in sports, but also wield the power to regulate dress code for women in sports.

Women in gymnastics, aquatics, beach volleyball and even in athletics are “advised” to cover-up more when men can get away with very much less. The excuse for men is that it may affect their level of performance, but not so for the women.

And it was not too long ago that female Muslim athletes in a number of sports were barred from wearing a hijab, even when it was proven that it did not affect the performance of safety of the athletes.

Neither was it much earlier that badminton wanted female players to wear skirts to make the game more “exciting”.

While we are engineered to admire the talented and strong men in action on the field, women are seen as window dressing. It is only in recent times that the usage of “Walk-on-Girls” in sports including boxing and motor racing, is seen as demeaning to women.

While sports like tennis and badminton have been giving equal pay to their players, there are still a slew of other sports that prefer to pay the men more. Approximately 83% of sports now give men and women equal pay although not so when it comes to football in America.

In recent times, Rapinoe has been at the forefront to ensure that women football players earn the same as the men. The American women, despite the much better track record, including multiple World Cup wins, still earn paltry sums compared to their non-performing men’s team.

Women should talk about all this and more, whether it was at the office or elsewhere. Sport is not a gender specific topic and it is sexist to think it is.

To assume that most women do not understand the technicalities and nuances of sports is another myth. While progress has been slow there number of women in leading roles in both the management and coaching of sports around the world is seeing an upsurge.

Baseball, American Football and basketball are three of the most male oriented professional sports in the USA. But even these sports are seeing an increase of women taking charge. Kim Ng is the senior vice-president of the Major League Baseball, Becky Hammon was the assistant coach of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team while Kathryn Smith had a similar role with the Buffalo Bills football team. That is just to name a few of those leading the charge.

Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.
– NELSON MANDELA

The United Nation Women sees sports as one of the great drivers of gender equality. Taking cue from Mandela’s inspiring word, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of UN Women in a statement last year said:

“We have an opportunity to put these ideals into action for the realization of gender equality and women’s empowerment – both in sport and in the wider world.”

She said it can instill self-reliance and resilience in face of the pressure to conform to traditional “feminine” stereotypes.

And stopping office banter in sports is propagating such stereotypes and not about empowering women.

Manchester United is one of the richest football teams in the world and it was only in 2018 that they saw it fit to start a women’s team. And it all because the number of women fans had increased tremendously and the management had suddenly seen the wisdom cashing on it financially.

The visibility created in talking about sports, whether it is at the office or elsewhere, helps women sports to grow and in turn inspire others.

Fay White, the former captain of England said: ”Being a role model and inspiring others to work harder to achieve whatever their dreams are is so rewarding.”

Seeking to ban conversations about sports at work, or anywhere else, for fear that alienates women is ill thought and patronizes them.

The sporting world needs women to talk more of sports and curtailing such conversation is only for those who are still relics of a bygone past.