The Great Tackle: Indian Women and Football
By Nupur Gokhale
Scabbed knees. Aiming random flying kicks at a miniature ball. Tugging and pulling at t-shirts. Finally scoring and running around with a wild victory cry. I’m sure even the adult in you cannot forget these memories of playing football with your childhood friends, not having a care in the world about your safety and appearance or more importantly about the gender in question. Then when and why, did football become a man’s sport? For women who choose to ignore that stereotype, pursuing the sport professionally or even as a hobby in India can prove to be an uphill task.
As a girl who plays football as a hobby and pursues it as a distant professional dream, stepping out onto a field dominated by the opposite sex can be mortifying and exhilarating at the same time. In a country like India, that is traditionally and educationally rigid, girls playing football is considered a rarity. In Bangalore schools specifically, the Physical Training instructors tend to stick to the gender assigned sports and those who deviate receive a sever tongue lashing. Having played for the Karnataka state team, my first encounter with stereotyping as a hurdle and how I jumped it not-so-gracefully but while creating controversy nonetheless was in school itself. Only after the boys of my school vouched for capabilities was I allowed to be a part of the house team, an opportunity that was earlier that was not available to girls. Now it seems like a trivial achievement, but its magnitude then was colossal.
Chitra Gangadharan, a veteran who coaches the Karnataka Senior Women's Football Team and the South zone of the Sports Authority of India and who also in her days was selected to the All Asian Star team, is a coach that is close to my heart, having trained under her for 2 years. Directing both men and women on the grounds with a tiny whistle and a commanding personality, she asserts that there is nothing unusual about a woman playing football. “It is in no way a man's sport. Such stereotypes exist in the physical education teachers' minds and that keeps the sport from girls in schools. Girls need to convince their school administration to allow them to play.”
Queenie Mendes who coaches the Christ University girls' football team also identifies the problem to be lack of initiative taken up at schools. “If students are exposed to the sport early, there will surely be interest generated and good players will [emerge],” she said.
The attitude change should start at the primary level of gender-typing girls and boys. Something as basic as the ideology that fashion is an area of interest for only girls propagates the divide between the roles.
The next obstacle that women tackle is at the competition level. Being very career oriented, surrounded by coaching classes, boards and tuitions, parents sometimes tend to see football as an unnecessary distraction, rather than a recreational sport. Also, the abysmal lack of funding at the Senior Women and Under-19 Nationals evident from the deteriorating facilities is quite a dampener on the spirit that these young women carry to these pre-professional competitions. It is also one of the main reasons that women who are serious about the sport tend to pursue it in countries abroad, such as the U.S.A and certain European countries.
While some states in India such as Orissa and West Bengal produce extremely well bred players that are raised with the game and eat, sleep and think football, other states have training that is intermittent and sparse, with coaching taken up just before tournaments. I remember practising for a mere two weeks prior to the Under-19 Nationals as part of the Karnataka team which delivered a very poor performance , whereas being trained for two months for the Inter-university tournament in Gwalior as part of the 2010 Mumbai University team that incidentally put up a very strong side. So clearly, for the sport to flourish, it is important to have sporting activity throughout the year, say women footballers in the country. Even the club scene for women in cities like Mumbai is far ahead of the situation in places like Bangalore.
As for professional football, Ms. Gangadharan believes that financial stability and recognition come as one gains experience. The Indian woman’s national football team struggles to keep up with more talented International squads such as China and Japan. However, India is beginning to recover and is growing stronger with each year. They were re-established on November 2009 for a 2-month training camp. And In March 2011 India Women began a brand new chapter by participating in the qualifiers for the 2012 Olympics. The average age of women qualifying for the national team being 25, I think it’s time they saw some young blood to freshen and shake them up.
So for all those of you leading ‘Bend It like Beckham’ lives, stop hiding those football studs in the bush. Bring them out, flaunt them proudly. Get family members to empathize and support you. Because God knows, being a girl and kicking some balls can be the most liberating thing ever.