Only half a medal

I CAN still remember their faces. Wearing ink-blue skirts, white blouses and white ribbons in their hair, a bright-eyed bunch of schoolgirls sat on the side of a mud road. They were on their way home from school. As we passed them, only a couple of them looked up in curiosity. They seemed in a trance, sitting quietly, looking out into the distance, perhaps dreaming.

By the time we arrived in their village, Chittoor village in Anantapur district, Andhra Pradesh, they had also made their way home. Now their curiosity was aroused. They joined their mothers and other women in the temple where we sat and discussed everything from work, health, rain, drought, food, children, men, worries. The girls stood on the side and followed the discussion with striking intensity.

Finally, I turned to them and asked them about their typical day. It began at 8 a.m., they said, when they would eat something and leave for school. This meant walking several kilometres, cutting across fields on the way. And after a day at school, where they ate what little they could take in their dubba, they walked back home by six in the evening.

And after that? Did they rest? Study? Play? "No," they answered almost in unison, "we help our mothers with the housework." Most of their mothers would have returned from a day of hard labour in the fields around the same time. The girls would then help sweep and clean, and cook, and also fill water.

Many girls like these from Chittoor village have no time to play, or to dream. I realised then, that when I had chanced upon them on the road, they were stealing some moments to themselves before returning to the world of chores and housework. Yet, these are the lucky girls. They, at least, go to school. Hundreds like them spend their days working in fields with their mothers.

Even in cities, girls in poor households inevitably end up doing housework after school. Even in better-off households, the concept of going out and playing is not always encouraged. Boys are always told to go out and play while girls are expected to stay at home. Even if they play, it is often at home.

The result of this gender division is nowhere more apparent than in sport. With the Sydney Olympics looming on the horizon, the absence of women athletes is once again apparent. Not that India has produced too many outstanding male athletes. Indeed, the world of sport in India is in a sorry state. But while things are beginning to change for women in sport in many countries, in India we have a long way to go.

In the United States, for instance, there is a now a law to ensure gender equity in sports. This has helped encourage sportswomen at the school and college levels. The effect of this is now evident in the number of outstanding women athletes that the U.S. is producing such as Marion Jones who hopes to be the first woman to win five gold medals in one Olympic games. Another gold medal favourite is Stacy Dragila who established that women could do the pole vault even though she was told that women were not built right for this sport.

Women's participation in the Olympics has come a long way from the first modern games in 1896 when women were not allowed to compete. One woman, Melpomene did compete, but unofficially. Since then, the numbers have steadily grown. Between 1996, when the last Olympics were held in Atlanta, until today, on the eve of the Sydney Olympics, an additional 774 women have qualified to compete in the games.

The 4,400 women athletes in Sydney constitute 42 per cent of the total number of 10,500 athletes. This represents a considerable advance on previous years.

What is also encouraging is that many more events have been opened up to women than in Atlanta. These include weight lifting, triathlon, taekwondo, modern pentathlon, water polo, hammer throw and pole vault.

Apart from an increase in numbers, another significant change has been the recognition that women's sports is finally, and belatedly, getting from the world media. In 1996, for instance, women's soccer was barely covered by the media. It received practically no sponsorship. All this changed in 1999 when the Women's World Cup in the U.S. got huge viewership - specially the exciting final between China and the U.S.. This was far in excess of what media planners had expected. Suddenly, women's sports became a saleable commodity. Sponsors were willing. The result: in Sydney all the women's soccer matches will be telecast.

But even if a few "stars" in women's sports, particularly those with looks like the tennis player Anna Kournikova who has earned more from advertising than through tournaments where her performance is very average, make a killing through sponsorship, women's sports is still given second class treatment.

Women's prize money is also much less than for men. In fact, when Stacy Dragila won in the pole vault at the World Championships in Seville, Spain, last year, her prize money was exactly half of that given to the male champion. She was reported telling a journalist, "I hope we do not get half a medal at Sydney."

Equality in all spheres will be a long time coming. But we can raise at least two cheers for the changes that have already taken place. The remaining cheer will have to wait until women are treated on par with men for their feats on the sports field and elsewhere.

KALPANA SHARMA

E-mail the writer at ksharma@vsnl.com

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