Empowering women through cricket Howzzat!

On one level, sport is about the passionate pursuit of physical excellence to achieve a specific goal, to win a competition. On another level, it’s part of the entertainment. And entertainment is an important part of the service sector, which could accommodate a growing part of the workforce as economies mature. Women’s cricket would directly and indirectly create jobs for women by undermining the deeply rooted notion that respectable women should stay at home or, if they go to work at all, be confined to teaching, office work or some such. that do not involve physical activity.

Female labor force participation is low compared to male labor force participation: just over 46% globally compared to 68% for males globally in 2021. India has a female labor force participation rate of 19%, placing India 11th among nations. Even Pakistan fares slightly better with a share of 21 percent. A number of Muslim-majority countries alone fare worse than India.

This does not mean that women in India do not work. They do most of the housework: cooking, fetching water, often traveling long distances, laundry, taking care of children and the elderly, and everything else related to human reproduction. But all this is unpaid work, which is therefore not work according to the definitions and standards in use.

The labor force is the part of the population doing paid work, which includes the employed and the unemployed, those who are looking for work but cannot find it. The labor force share is the share of the population aged 15 or older that is ready for work. Sometimes even the gainful work done by women is ignored as work. The actual share of women in the labor force may therefore be higher than the official figure of 19%. But it would still be much lower than Solomon Islands’ 83%, China’s 62% or Indonesia’s 54%.

India needs a radical change away from the traditional culture when it comes to women and their agency. This is basically the task of democracy, to realize the gender equality promised by the constitution. However, patriarchal societies believe that women do not deserve autonomy, as it is their role to protect men at all stages of life: father when they are children, husband in their youth, and son in their old age. This has been superseded by the modern constitution, but the way prevails over the law in social practice.

Women’s cricket as a competitive sport helps to modernize the value system of women’s behavior in society and it helps to break social structures of stereotypical roles and choices. This in turn paves the way for fuller participation in social life, including the economic life of nations.

On the field, only athletic excellence and the unity of the individual members as a team are decisive. Those identity factors, which in the wider society usually act as fault lines for the possible breaking of solidarity caste, religion, region, economic background, ethnicity, have no place on the field. In this sense, team sports, like teams in the workplace, are instruments of modernity and cohesion, and instruments that transcend identities irrelevant to the task at hand.

As has been observed in connection with education, when women are the beneficiaries, the benefit is also passed on to the next generation. So a good women’s cricket team would serve as a training ground for better citizens who also make up a modern nation.

The big change brought about by IPL is the social composition of Indian cricket stars. Cricket used to be an elite hobby. Not anymore. Indian cricket stars now have a much wider player pool than before. A similar change awaits women’s cricket as well. And it is crucial to change the general perception of women’s rightful role in society.

And it is welcome that this is happening during a natural period of diversification and growth in India’s entertainment sector and not as part of any top-down reform being pushed by the government or any revival program that doesn’t resonate with the masses.

It’s good business for Mohit Burman. It is also a welcome development for Indian women and for India as a whole.