Dat­tani­ran­jan Nan­diokol­math

The over­whelm­ing sup­port for Afghanistan’s men’s crick­et team in the 2025 ICC Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy con­trasts sharply with the snubbed si­lenc­ing of Afghan sports­women, such as the taek­won­do cham­pi­on Marzieh Hami­di. Hami­di re­cent­ly raised her voice against this ex­clu­sion. She has been liv­ing in ex­ile in France since 2021 af­ter the Tal­iban’s takeover. This anec­dote calls for dis­cussing gen­der apartheid in sports and the roles of so­ci­ety, pow­er, and glob­al voic­es.

An­nie Kel­ly, in a The Guardian ar­ti­cle, de­fined gen­der apartheid as “sys­temic op­pres­sion, dis­crim­i­na­tion and seg­re­ga­tion of a spe­cif­ic group based on gen­der.” Pierre Bour­dieu, a French so­ci­ol­o­gist, be­lieved that sport as a field of pow­er per­pet­u­ates ex­ist­ing so­cial or­der, hi­er­ar­chies, and in­equal­i­ties. The ex­clu­sion of Afghan women from sports is an ex­am­ple of Bour­dieu’s sym­bol­ic vi­o­lence, the self-so­cialised ac­cep­tance of op­pres­sion that le­git­imis­es the ex­is­tence of in­equal­i­ty.

Gen­der apartheid in sports is a glob­al is­sue that takes on dif­fer­ent forms in dif­fer­ent so­ci­eties. The ban on women in sta­di­ums in Iran, the hi­jab bans in French sports, protests by In­di­an fe­male wrestlers against sex­u­al ha­rass­ment, and sex­u­al abuse scan­dals in US gym­nas­tics are all salient ex­am­ples. Such flaws do not emerge in a vac­u­um. These cas­es show that pow­er dif­fer­en­tials along the lines of gen­der with­in sports are caught up in pa­tri­ar­chal hi­er­ar­chies that tran­scend regime dif­fer­ences. Sports his­to­ry has seen a con­sid­er­able con­test against racial apartheid in sports world­wide; nev­er­the­less, gen­der aparthei­ds con­tin­ue to be ac­cept­ed.

So­ci­eties and sports

So­ci­eties in­flu­ence ac­cep­tance of or re­sis­tance to gen­dered sports struc­tures. An­to­nio Gram­sci’s cul­tur­al hege­mo­ny con­cept ex­plains how dom­i­nant gen­der norms per­sist through so­ci­etal ac­cep­tance rather than force. Gen­der reg­u­la­tion in sports is deeply en­trenched in so­cial at­ti­tudes and cul­tur­al ex­pec­ta­tions. In Iran, sta­di­um bans for women were ini­tial­ly nor­malised; how­ev­er, grass­roots ac­tivism eased these lim­i­ta­tions. Con­verse­ly, Afghanistan’s com­plete ex­clu­sion of women from sports faces min­i­mal do­mes­tic re­sis­tance due to in­grained pa­tri­ar­chal struc­tures. The UN Women’s ob­ser­va­tion that the dropout rate in girls from sports by age 14 is twice that in boys sug­gests that so­ci­etal ex­pec­ta­tions may be in­flu­en­tial.

Re­li­gious prin­ci­ples that in­ter­sect gen­der norms can af­fect gen­der ex­clu­sion in sports. Ac­cord­ing to an­thro­pol­o­gist Mary Dou­glas in Pu­ri­ty and Dan­ger, re­li­gious in­ter­pre­ta­tions can of­ten le­git­imise fe­male mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion by em­pha­sis­ing chasti­ty and pu­ri­ty. How­ev­er, some voic­es of pro­gres­sive re­li­gious paths ad­vo­cate in­clu­sion. These con­flict­ing re­li­gious per­spec­tives il­lus­trate how be­liefs shape so­ci­etal at­ti­tudes, con­tribut­ing to or chal­leng­ing gen­der aparthei­ds in sports and pub­lic life.

Grass­roots ac­tivism high­lights sports’ trans­for­ma­tive po­ten­tial. As icons, fe­male ath­letes push against phys­i­cal and so­ci­etal con­straints when play­ing sports. This re­sis­tance res­onates with Ju­dith But­ler’s the­o­ry of gen­der per­for­ma­tiv­i­ty, which con­tends that gen­der is con­struct­ed through re­peat­ed ac­tions. By as­sert­ing their pres­ence in sport­ing spaces, women ac­tive­ly re­de­fine the con­cept of fem­i­nin­i­ty in sports, cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for a more di­verse and ac­cept­ing fu­ture.

To­wards in­clu­sive sport­ing so­ci­eties

Ger­da Lern­er’s 1986 book, The Cre­ation of Pa­tri­archy, ar­gues that con­trol over fe­male sex­u­al­i­ty dates back to hunter-gath­er­er so­ci­eties. How­ev­er, in the 21st cen­tu­ry, such sys­temic con­trol over women should have no place. Na­tion­al sov­er­eign­ty is im­por­tant but should not ex­cuse gen­der dis­crim­i­na­tion. The in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty must adopt con­sis­tent ac­count­abil­i­ty, ir­re­spec­tive of geopo­lit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions. Fight­ing gen­der equal­i­ty in sports re­quires in­sti­tu­tion­al ac­tion and so­ci­etal en­gage­ment. The prac­tice of gen­der-based bias in sports re­in­forces the no­tion that women are pe­riph­er­al, per­pet­u­at­ing im­pacts be­yond sports. This dis­crim­i­na­tion not on­ly un­der­mines the phys­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, and so­cial as­pi­ra­tions of the fe­male pop­u­la­tion but al­so hin­ders the achieve­ment of Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs).

In or­der to dis­man­tle en­trenched norms, so­ci­eties must ini­ti­ate a cul­tur­al shift. Franz Boas’ phi­los­o­phy of cul­tur­al rel­a­tivism is es­sen­tial; how­ev­er, sus­tain­able ef­forts to bal­ance cul­tur­al as­pects and as­pi­ra­tions must be man­aged. Some re­forms may in­clude spe­cial women’s sports courts, cross-coun­try tal­ent trans­fers, af­fir­ma­tive re­li­gious col­lab­o­ra­tions, eq­ui­table me­dia rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and mod­er­at­ing so­ci­etal val­ues with sports rules. It is cru­cial to move be­yond the mind­set of vic­tim­i­sa­tion and im­ple­ment changes with­in sports struc­tures that align with evolv­ing so­ci­etal norms. Ed­u­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tives can play a de­ter­min­ing role by de­fy­ing stereo­types and pro­mot­ing gen­der equal­i­ty at a younger age. Me­dia, re­li­gious, and cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions must ac­tive­ly re­shape women’s nar­ra­tives in sports, por­tray­ing them as in­te­gral con­trib­u­tors to the sports en­vi­ron­ment.

In ‘The Way She Moves’ (2007), on gen­der spaces, Shilpa Ranade ob­served that gen­der norms are re­pro­duced through every­day spa­tial prac­tices, sug­gest­ing that chang­ing how women use pub­lic spaces could im­pact gen­der dis­crim­i­na­tion over time. As a pub­lic space, sports have an ex­plo­sive po­ten­tial to break gen­der apartheid. All sports spaces must ac­com­mo­date gen­der par­tic­i­pa­tion. As we cel­e­brate In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day this year, the jour­ney to­wards gen­der equal­i­ty is la­bo­ri­ous. Still, a fair and just sport­ing world is with­in reach with ac­cel­er­at­ed and sus­tained ef­fort and col­lec­tive will.

Dat­tani­ran­jan Nan­diokol­math is a Doc­tor­al Stu­dent in An­thro­pol­o­gy at Kar­natak Uni­ver­si­ty, Dhar­wad, In­dia