Mirabai’s win at Tokyo Olympics: Stepping stone for women’s sports coverage?
We live in a patriarchal society and women’s sports has not historically attracted the same level of advertisers’ interest or media coverage as men’s sports. In India, sports has always been a subject for boys and even the thought of a woman wanting to pursue sports as a career are often banished.
This deep-rooted patriarchy has led to male dominancy in the majority of the field, and more so in sports because of its association with masculinity and toughness. But things have been changing and more and more women aspire to be an athlete and continue sports as her career. But even then, things aren’t that easy. To reach a level a woman has to fight several battles and even then there’s low appreciation, acknowledgement from the people and low or no coverage of them in media. It is still a struggle for the media to convince advertisers of women’s sports coverage.
But experts from the industry believe that this year’s Tokyo Olympics might provide an opportunity for more media coverage of women’s sports, and further increase gender equality awareness in sports. And we can agree that this is partially true. After Mirabai Chanu, India’s star weightlifter created history by becoming the first Indian weightlifter to win the silver medal at the Olympic Games.
“She didn’t lift the weights, she lifted the whole nation”
- Heena Sidhu, an Olympian and Arjuna Awardee, reflects on Mirabai Chanu’s historic silver in Tokyo
She opened India’s medal account at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with a silver medal. And after her huge victory, the national media, print media and digital media covered the news heavily sidelining India vs Srilanka T20. Giving the Mirabai, her most deserved space on the front page of the newspapers to prime time in broadcasting.
Though this could be partially because it's an Olympics but it can surely pave a path for more women to join in and can further assure the advertisers that women can be ‘profitable’ too.
