The world of sports: it's a man's world!

Marion Bartoli of France poses with the Venus Rosewater Dish trophy at the Wimbledon Championships 2013 Winners Ball. BBC commentator John Inverdale made rather insensitive comments after she claimed her maiden Grand Slam. (Getty Images)

“This is a man’s world, this is a man’s worldBut it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl”

When legendary singer James Brown said or rather sang these slightly chauvinistic but deeply profound words almost 45 years ago, little must he have realised how much things have changed but still remained the same.

Although women today have made great strides in various fields, there still remains a certain bias against them. Their merit is more often than not overshadowed by other aspects of their personality, and shamefully in some cases, their merit is in fact determined by these other factors.

For reasons that I can never wrap my head around, sport has always been considered to be a man’s domain. Be it in terms of the media coverage or the money paid, it has been the men who have always been given the onus of fighting for their country or team’s honour.

That’s surprising, given that history is replete with instances where women have often surpassed their counterparts in achieving sporting glory. One need not look further than our own country, India to test this argument.

For all of Milkha Singh’s achievements, PT Usha’s heartbreaking loss at the 1984 LA Olympics (she lost the bronze by 1/100th of a second) reminds us that women can also leave it all out on the field. Who can forget Karnam Malleswari’s bronze medal lift at the 2000 Sydney Olympics that made an entire nation proud? And it took the Commonwealth Games and a Bollywood biopic for the nation to appreciate MC Mary Kom‘s outstanding accomplishments in the field of boxing.

Why is it that an Abhinav Bindra or a Gagan Narang is recognised for their sporting achievements, while the female athletes mentioned above are always on the brink of oblivion? This state of affairs is not prevalent just in India where women’s emancipation is still a burning issue. Even developed countries, where women are supposedly more secure and exposed to equal opportunities, seem to be struggling with the notion of removing the ‘beauty and appeal’ part of the equation from the talent.

BBC commentator John Inverdale’s rather insensitive comments after Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli won the 2013 Wimbledon women’s championship is one of those incidents that keep this debate alive. “I just wonder if her dad did say to her when she was 12, 13, 14 maybe: ‘Listen, you are never going to be, you know, a looker. You are never going to be a [Maria] Sharapova, you’re never going to be 5 feet 11, and you’re never going to be somebody with long legs, so you have to compensate for that,” he said.

By that logic should we also ask if Andy Murray‘s mum asked him to compensate for his lack of good hair and sharp features? It is extremely disturbing that good looks play such a huge part in a female player’s success today.

Saina Nehwal of India stands with her Bronze medal during London 2012 Olympic Games. Her name is often mispronounced as ‘Sania’ by media channels. (Getty Images)

Sharapova’s massive yearly earnings are not just because she is a very good player but also because she is a “good looking, tall, blonde” woman who happens to be good at her game. A lot of men tune in to watch her and not her game. The same people demean Serena Williams because she is not conventionally pretty despite the fact that she is twice the player that Sharapova can ever be.

There was a distinct buzz around the circuit when Sania Mirza arrived on the tennis scene. Unfortunately, the buzz was more because of how she looked than for how she played. Contrast that with Saina Nehwal‘s story. She is a player who has represented the nation with tenacity and a strong temperament on many occasions, but her name is often mispronounced as ‘Sania’ by media channels, because she is not ‘glamorous’ enough and is someone who minds her own business – attributes that people appreciate in sportsmen but alas, not in sportswomen.

It is okay when Rafael Nadal features in Shakira’s music video or when David Beckham poses half nude for fashion magazines, but it is not okay when Agnieszka Radwanska poses for a magazine’s body image issue (a topic which is relevant) because it makes her a bad role model. These double standards reek of ignorance and arrogance.

This article by Robert Jobson in the Daily Mail quotes a survey which mentions that one in every four people who come to watch a football match is a woman. That is 25% of your audience, and yet FIFA, football’s governing body, made changes to their rules to allow a woman to sit on the FIFA Executive Committee only as late as May 2012.

The BCCI – the governing body for cricket in India and the richest cricket board in the world – very conveniently seems to forget that it is responsible for not just the men’s game but also the women’s. Despite having all the resources at its disposal, very little has been done to make the women’s game popular in the country, forget about having women at the helm of affairs in some capacity. And this piece by Abhishek Purohit on ESPN Cricinfo further highlights the discriminatory attitude of BCCI towards women’s cricket.

So where does the buck stop? For starters, it would be great if more sportsmen came out in the open to talk about the importance of having female representation both on and off the field. That is what good role models should do. Sporting bodies around the globe should also ensure more diversity. This is in no way to suggest the inclusion of women at the cost of merit, but surely there is room for qualified and talented women across sporting lines in the world.

Hopefully, some day, women will be recognised and paid for their talent and not for their ability to look beautiful. And that day, James Browns’ song will become even more relevant.