Medal or motherhood?

The original tweet

Even as the whole of India is celebrating weightlifter Mirabai Chanu winning a silver medal at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics, there are some people condemning her on social media for 'destroying her fertile years' (Instead of lifting weights) 'she could bring new beautiful lives to the planet earth'!

We were not surprised by this comment as we see much of the society around us still harking on the centuries-old patriarchy. We believe that a woman, or any person, should have the freedom to choose what they want to do in life. To have a child or not, when to have a child, how many children to have are personal choices of a woman. The least we can do is to empower her to do so.

On the other hand, can we call this gaslighting by a man? Of course, we are assuming the person who wrote this on Twitter is a male. Maybe it shows our gendered mindset because women could be as and sometimes more patriarchal than men. This tweet, by a person whose gender one may never find out, assumes that a woman has to bear a child/children, of course within marriage - though it is not explicitly mentioned in the tweet. It also says that personal ambitions and aspirations of women are detrimental to society.

How about sportsmen and the impact of the physical activity on their fertility? A Cleveland Clinic report says, "Decreased seminal parameters and sex hormone levels have been reported in male athletes and, therefore, a possible impairment of male fertility has been linked to exercise in a volume, intensity, and modality dependent-manner."

So, should we consider that sports are harmful and detrimental to society and ban the Olympics?

It is inspiring to read about the hardships Mirabai had to face to reach where she is today. Mirabai could visit her parents only for a few days in a year, for the past few years; she has been training so hard for this glorious moment. She is passionate about the sport and she has been working extremely hard to get better at it.

We can't forget that in a country, where (Men's) Cricket is the only sport talked about, a person from a remote state, away from the modern facilities, and living in extremely difficult circumstances has got India its first medal in the Tokyo Olympics.

She is to be commended, not condemned. If she wants to be a mother, she will. Whenever she wants. Some sportswomen are mothers and are competing and winning. One of the names that comes to our mind is Mary Kom, who is bringing up three kids and continues to compete. So who says pursuing a sport and motherhood are mutually exclusive?

The most heartening thing is that the tweet has not gone down well with the Twitterati. However, rather than shouting the person down and making him a social media celebrity, we may consider having public conversations on such opinions and statements to challenge the deep-seated patriarchal mindsets.

#tokyoolympics #gender #women #mirabaichanu