Indian Girls Throw Punches at Poverty
Countries: India
An article in Friday's Wall Street Journal looks at how boxing is giving Muslim girls in India an alternative to their "practically scripted" life.
For many of these girls, the Wall Street Journal says life goes like this: "they stay home, help their mothers, and get married so they aren't a burden to their families anymore."
Sabihal Hussain, a women's studies professor at a New Delhi university explains how boxing is opening up new doors for the girls.
They find (boxing) as a way of coming out from conservativeness. They have very limited role — poor Muslim women — in the public sphere. So thes women, these boxers, they find a way to come out and this is an outlet for them to fight poverty.
The boxers train hard and those that are good enough to compete internationally, fight for cash prizes. But for many girls, boxing can be a gateway into a job with the the police or land them a college scholarship for a spot on the university sports team.
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Poh Si Teng's WSJ article has many insights
The WSJ article about Muslim girls from India taking up boxing was a very well written one. It puts in perspective the kind of social conservativeness that Muslim women like Ms Fatma have to battle to achieve self-actualization through a sport like boxing that her neighbors deem fit for boys only.
Traditional gender barriers prevent women like Ms Fatma from challenging the male social supremacy that reserves positions of any power or prestige for men, thus leaving for women only domestic chores and odd jobs like sewing, and lowering the female self esteem.
A sport like boxing is a compromise really—by pursuing it, the Muslim women does not challenge the economic supremacy of the male in the family, i.e. the father or the husband. Yet the value of the self-confidence inspired in women by being good at a complex sport—and at that, one presumed by their society to be fit exclusively for males—is immense.
It is very heartening to read about the fathers of women like Ms Fatma and Ms Shabnam standing up against social pressure for the sake of their daughters’ emotional and social well-being. Perhaps such fathers have understood that only feeding and clothing their daughters does not making them complete human beings. Also heartening to read is that women from these societies who excel at sports can not only take part in tournaments at various levels, but are also invited to join the police force or the railway because of their talent. Such a segway into other occupations traditionally reserved for men might inspire a wider social change, that would finally benefit both women and men.
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