Mawande
says...
Believe
it or not, I am a fan of women’s sport. I’ve always enjoyed women’s tennis, I
grew up watching it and then gradually came to enjoy women’s track and field
and more recently in the last 5 years women’s football has become a favourite
of mine. I’d certainly choose to watch any of these sports over the IPL any day
of the week!
I do
not presume to be a feminist or a champion for women’s rights and equality or
whatever. I’ll leave all of that for civil groups and the like. My views on
women’s sport are purely based on the notion that it has the biggest untapped
potential in South Africa.
Coverage
of women’s sport in South Africa is lacking. This past week, I tuned in between
the SABC, Supersport and ESPN channels to see how much coverage of women’s sport
there was. On one of the SABC channels there as a show about women in sport and
that was only about 30 minutes long along with some coverage of women’s
athletics. On Supersport, I saw some women’s tennis along with a couple of
shows including women’s golf, water sports and volleyball. On ESPN women’s
sports coverage included billiard, bowling, college basketball and
cheerleading.
This
might be decent enough coverage of women’s sport on the box, but for my mind
too little of it was local content. Our local female athletes are not gaining
the exposure that their counterparts in other parts are getting. Our national
women’s football team probably gets the most media attention but still, very
few players are household names unlike Mia Hamm, Hope Solo and Alex Morgan from
the United States, who are able to attract major endorsement deals and appear
on magazine covers. Caster Semenya is the one female athlete I see more than
any other on television and in newspapers. Constant media coverage of our
female athletes seems to be fleeting. Whilst Caster is the darling in the media
right now, it is no different to the early 2000s when Olympic silver-medallist
high jumper Hestrie Cloete was all the hype.
In recent times, golfer Ashleigh Simon
attracted a lot of media attention but in the last few years she has all but
disappeared from the sporting public’s consciousness, whilst fellow golfer
Lee-Ann Pace only garnered media attention after topping the LPGA’s money list.
This country’s top female athletes don’t
garner the same amount of media attention as their male counterparts who hold
the attention of the media and the public not only in the prime of their
careers but well into retirement as well.
But
I understand why this is so. A little boy who dreams of representing his
country at rugby, for instance, probably has a better chance of realizing that
dream than a girl who dreams of representing her country at netball does with
hers. I say this because young boys are given every opportunity to succeed.
While they may come from similar circumstances, things change for the little
boy when he reaches high school and gets into the junior provincial teams.
The
young girl might play junior provincial netball as well, but she isn’t being
watched by scouts at her tournament and won’t get offered a bursary to a top
netball-playing school. These are opportunities available, through rugby, to
the young boy if he does well. At under 18 level, the young boy gets to play in
a tournament that is broadcast live on national television. The young girl
doesn’t.
When
the two finish high school, the young man now has the opportunity to attend
varsity on scholarship that requires him to gym a bit, pitch up for practice
and occasionally attend some class. The young lady probably won’t get the same
kind of scholarship unless she works her socks off academically. The young boy
goes on to represent his Maties or Tuks or whomever at The Varsity Cup, another
tournament that is broadcast live nationally, whilst the girl who no matter how
serious she was with her netball will probably end up playing the bulk of her
game in social leagues and playing in the national inter-provincial tournament
for one week in the year that will get 5 minutes worth of coverage on SABC 2.
What
am I trying to say here? I am saying that we have so much invested in male
sports that the path is clear for them and we’re developing in those areas that
are already teeming with talent and opportunities, however we don’t have nearly
as much or enough invested in female sports which is why South Africa is not
constantly producing female Olympic gold medallists or World Champions. Quite
simply, young girls don’t have local sporting females to look up to, to drive
and motivate them to achieve their dreams. There aren’t enough female sporting
role models spread out across the sporting codes to inspire young girls. As
much as a young lady may love sport, it just isn’t a career option for her
because she doesn’t have what the young boy had growing up, do not even think
of innuendo here.
I have
always had strong views on women’s sport and it seems like when the Sports
Minister hops on to our TV screens and gives his platitudinous speeches about
transformation and grass-roots development that he forgets that young girls and
young ladies also play sports. I feel
like the focus of the country’s Sports Ministry should not be rugby, cricket or
football at all but on the ‘minority’ or amateur sports. The professional
sports have mother bodies to generate their own money and to run themselves
within the guidelines of the Ministry. I feel like if careful attention could
be given to developing sports such as hockey, volleyball, swimming and the
like, especially the women’s aspect of those sports, South Africa would produce
more stars and medal prospects.
The
only problem right now is that there aren’t enough female athletes proving to
young girls that a career in professional sport is worthwhile.
