No matter how capable a woman is her looks will still dominate the picture. Wimbledon 2013 turned ‘Win-dumble' with sexist comments clouding Marion Bartoli's victory. Eram Agha gets the ‘fair' picture
What makes a woman championIJ Toned legs, flat tummy, high cheek bones! Women Wimbledon Champion 2013, Marion Bartoli is only half a winner then, because she didn’t aspire for a model look. Reporter John Inverdale told listeners, “Do you think Bartoli’s dad told her when she was little, ‘you’re never going to be a looker, you’ll never be a Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fightIJ” Sadly, her father didn’t inculcate the model look ethics in Bartoli. What was he busy doing thenIJ He introduced the sport to her when she was six (wonder why didn’t he engage a stylist). He drove long distances to tournaments while she completed her homework sitting at the back of the car, devised original training methods; but all this doesn’t please the sexist eye.
“A professional with small town roots dresses up according to his or her own social background and comfort considerations, but people in big cities call them behenjis. Sadly, we judge caliber by closet,” says Devi Cherian. The pressure of looking good is more on women, and a man discovered this phenomenon through an act. Tootsie was not a comedy for Dustin Hoffman because he realised that he missed too many opportunities of knowing interesting women, as he judged them on physical appearance. “I was brainwashed!” he had said. Surprisingly, Wimbledon 2013 will be remembered for all things patriarchal. What makes one remember a woman championIJ Maybe a male name, no wonder, Virginia Wade’s Wimbledon women’s singles championship in 1977 is forgotten in media. This is the time when feminists make hay while the men perspective shines or rather declines. Writer Chloe Angyal tweeted: “Murray is indeed the first Brit to win Wimbledon in 77 years unless you think women are people.”
Neglected story
Advaita Kala feels women are still not handling key portfolios in different fields. “They are kept away from serious profiles,” she says. Scholar Prakash K Ray seconds that, for him emphasis on looks has done more damage than benefit to women. He says, “The Indian roots of visual culture say that women should be fair. Revisit Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings and see how it defined the beauty tenets, which had an impact on our collective psyche. Today in every field we want fair and beautiful women.” In 2010, sociologist Stephanie Berberick shared that young girls are vulnerable to the message that popular culture gives by popularising unattainable body size examples. Young girls think their worth lies in looks. The rising rate of cosmetic surgeries and eating disorders is related to the objectification of women in the media. A 2009 UNESCO report described the way women in the media are perceived: “The glamorous sex kitten, the sainted mother, the devious witch, the hardfaced corporate and political climber.” The sitcoms, which have overweight female characters, weave jokes around women’s body size. looks still define the worth!
Bitter reality
With each passing women achievement there is a growing breed of sexists. london Mayor Boris Johnson commented, “Women take up university education to find husbands.” Boris’ statement sounds a little familiar to an advertising professional who quoted on anonymity, “I started my career in a small town, where my boss told me, you are not here to bide your time till you reach the marriageable age.” He meant ‘Good jobs mean good catch in the marriage market.’ Women deal with these petty views on a daily basis. Kala adds, “I have worked in hotels where the general perception is women in hotels have easier time on job because men like to deal with them.” The only way these nasty remarks can be handled is by moving out. “The more women move out, the better. Think about our Parliament, how many women representatives we women haveIJ” Kala adds. The corporate field has its own way of treating women, Chavi Miglani, corporate communication executive seethes at the dim prospects,
“If there is a challenging assignment of working in the US men are always preferred,” she says.
The way ahead
But there is hope in the fact that we women live longer than men, do better in economy. More of us graduate from college. Go into space and do everything men do, and sometimes do it a whole lot better. At his elementary school reunion Biologist Ronald Ericsson believed in this. He ended his speech with, “I mean, hell, get out of the way-these females are going to leave us males in the dust!”