You throw like a girl!

Shamsad Mortuza
Published : 10 Sept 2016, 07:44 AM
Updated : 10 Sept 2016, 07:44 AM

My mother often recalls winning prizes in cycling at school, or her ability as a teenager to flip back and pick up coins from the floor. Nobody taught her gymnastics, yet she was athletic enough to perform all these when she was studying at her village school in Magura. The limit of her performance, however, was marked by her marriage at the age of 17, and I was born to her when she was only 19. Now I am a dad of a 19 year old daughter who still demands a piggy ride from me every now and then. Marrying our daughter off is the last thing that my wife and I can think of, as we want her to set her own goals in life. How things have changed within the span of three generations!

When Margarita Mamun won the gold medal in rhythmic gymnastics in Rio Olympics, there was a flurry of cyber emotions. The nation was as divided as her dual nationality. Margarita, whose father happened to be a marine engineer from Bangladesh, took part in our national junior gymnastics competition. We failed to give her the scope in her desired avenue, allowing her to move back to Russia. While one group lamented the missed golden medal opportunity, the other group retorted saying that our country would have never allowed 'Rita the Bengal tigress' to appear in skimpy dresses, let alone perform before the global audience. However, both groups seem happy to identify Margarita by her father's nationality tagged in the surname.

The recent hype is over the female footballers from Kalsindur, Mymensing; Gopalpur, Tangail and Rangpur. These village girls of the Bangladesh Under-16 team have made a habit of winning, unleashing goal riots, and thrashing their opponents right and left. Their girl power is no joke. For us this is something that is unheard of, undreamed of. The transformtion is as rapid as our women who received military training to become guerilla fighters in just nine months. The joy that these girls brought is the joy that our freedom fighters fought for. This is the same joy we felt seeing Mabia lifting up the pride of the whole nation in gold and silver in SA games. This is same joy that we felt when Bangladeshi women got ODI status in cricket. Back in 2009, Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) was struggling to find 11 players for its national team. Here we are in 2016: the women's team ranks 128th in the world tally, while their male colleagues are experiencing a consistent downslide, currently occupying the 178th spot.

Our Prime Minister was quick to point it out: "When our girls are scoring ten goals our boys are conceding five". She was referring to the girls' team's 10-0 victory over Kyrghistan, on a day when our senior men's team was on the receiving end of a goal galore against Maldives in a friendly match.

The PM's comment I am sure is a huge blow to the male ego, in other words to patriarchy. Sportswomen are not only taking part in a structure that remains a bastion of male power, but also wielding power. Patriarchy is usually comfortable in showcasing the beauty of sports women, airing TV series on the wives and girlfriends (WAGs) of footballers or printing scandals of players (pun unintended). The essence of patriarchy lies in locating men in the position of control. Are men really used to seeing women succeed in what are deemed as male arenas?

Let me quote The Daily Star reporter who saw the girls playing the first match against Iran: "Those who watched this particular game were amazed to see their ability to run at the same pace on a full-size ground for 90 minutes, their hunger to win back the ball, some individual skills like bending the ball, providing those defense-splitting passes, playing those one-twos with authority. It may sound harsh but the kind of football they played with all the basic ingredients deeply rooted in every one of them, can even impress the senior-most men's team of our country."

The reporter very 'impressively' falls short of saying 'shame.' Our PM does not require to be tactful given her vantage position. But the subsequent reaction against the girls who performed so well in the AFC Under-16 Women's Champions qualifiers demands a reflection on our social norms that define our attitude towards sports in general and women's sports in particular.

Soon after the event was over, these girls were asked to board local inter-city buses on the ground that they were not comfortable riding AC microbuses. The class implication is clear. BFF just assumed that since the girls' fathers pulled rickshaw-vans or worked in the farms, they would not be comfortable in air-conditioned transport (saving money is not an issue of course). Such proposition makes our laurel-winning national heroes the greatest sadists on earth, who prefer travelling in heat while being teased by men to official microbuses. BFF does not have the minimum decency and intelligence to understand that they cannot treat the girls the same way they ordinarily treat other players. This is even more dangerous in a country where women get raped in public buses, and where women are not safe even in police custody. Besides, if something terrible happens to these girls, God forbid, the future official trips of some of these BFF staff maybe in jeopardy. So please for your own benefit (You Comes First: one business mantra I have learned in the academia), take care of these girls.

Unfortunately, BFF is not the only actor in the lives of these girls. Soon after the Kalsindur girls went home, they got into trouble with their school authority. Their sports teacher insisted on taking part in a local competition on a day they are supposed to get formally awarded by none other than the Honorable PM. When the players pointed it out, they were threatened with rustication from school, and the father of one player was beaten up by the school's sports teacher and his lackeys.

I find the school sports teacher's behaviour the most intriguing. Surely he is the one who encouraged them to get into the game in the first place. Why is he retracting from his earlier passion? Instead of being proud of their accomplishments, why is he insisting on something that matters only to his interest? Is he exerting his control to show who is the boss, turning the girls into his personal property? How do we understand this possessive control-freak behaviour?

Sports is an arena, which in Freudian terms, offers a defense mechanism known as sublimation in which an unacceptable drive is transformed into a socially acceptable one. Thus in sports we find the sublimation of aggressive demand in a competition or contest. In other words, sports is a place where we channel our own emotions. As fans, our fears and passions are all poured into something over which we have very little control. We get thrilled by diverting our inner rage, frustrations, or anxieties by engaging in sports, where the outcome of such engagements is unpredictable (analogous to life). Then again, as men, are we willing to see our women performing at the battleground of our emotions? We do enjoy the nationalistic pride they bring in. We do like watching them. Can our male egos really stomach the fact that Wasfia Nazreen can mount seven summits or Nishat Majumdar can be a banker, housewife and Everest climber?

The reaction against our women's team has exposed the raw nerves of our patriarchy. It is a system that wants female sportsmen to be the objects of male pleasure, without allowing them the space to be the subject of their own. The signs are already there. Despite all their potential, these girls will soon be expected to yield to different social norms. They will be asked to stop acting like 'men' and fit into their prescribed gender roles of becoming housewives, mothers or bread-earners. One player from the Kalsindur lot, Ruma, who performed superbly in U-14 stage, has already done so. The team captain Krishna Rani's mother earlier stabbed Krishna's football to divert her daughter's attention to homely chores (this last image could be an episode from Bend it Like Beckham).

I don't want to sound too patronizing, but these girls need special care and attention. Otherwise, they will be lost in the jungle of life. The attitude of BFF (not to be confused with best friend forever) has been unprofessional to say the least. We cannot trust the fate of these girls with a federation that does not even realize the special requirements of children under 16. The best bet therefore is to transfer all these girls to BKSP where they can receive both education and training. I am sure, special provisions can be made to enroll these students in the country's premier sports academy so that they can gel as a team and become our national pride. Only an intervention from the highest level can make it happen!

Otherwise, we will end up with a bunch of potential mothers who will recall at a latter stage of their lives of the impossible things that they used to do when they were young. Meanwhile our coaches will keep on stereotyping the weakness of the girls by grinning at their weakest players on the field saying, 'you throw like a girl.' And our fans will relish the fact that behind the success of the girls there is a male bloodline.

Our Prime Minister's passion for sports is well known. May we request her not only to give the girls just a one off cheque in a public reception, but also a shelter where they can grow as a team, and move from strength to strength with their skills, dedication, and determination? They deserve a place where they can be proud to be sportspersons. Let the girls be placed under the special care of BKSP.

The author is Professor of English, Dhaka Universty (on leave). He is currently the Head of the Department of English and Humanities, ULAB.