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What Stands Different?






The day felt like any other day, except it wasn’t.

I was casually flipping through the Himalayan Times on the 13th of October, 2018, Saturday when I came across this news. And it seemed like any other news too, except it wasn’t. Apparently, there was on open water competition held at Fewa Taal, Pokhara last Friday, the 12th of October, 2018. Sounds adventurous, right? I thought so too. A shout out to all the winners too. Coming from someone who does not even know how to swim and gets scared when thinking of diving head first into a mass of water, with god knows what down there, you guys have my respect, you really do. But this is not about that. Something in this article caught my eye, something in this article stood out for me from everything else.

The article proudly displayed the winners of the boys and the winners of the girls, with only a measly difference of 1 minute between the first positions: well done! But the article also proudly announced that while the winning boys got Rs. 25000, Rs. 15000, and Rs. 10000 for the first, second and the third positions respectively, I was taken aback to read that the winning girls got Rs. 10000, Rs. 8000 and Rs. 5000 for the same respective positions. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is not right.

Why are the rewards different here? Just because they were girls? It was the same premises of competition; the same sport; the same techniques used. Why then? Are girls less passionate? Do girls not work as hard as boys? Did the girls not seem as determined? No, what is it? I would really like to know. What stands different? Perhaps this is one example that we see here and perhaps there are others going around in our country. It is not only about the reward money, but it is about equal appreciation and equal treatment. We take pride in saying that Gaurika Singh, a girl of Nepali origin competed in the Olympian level, and then we go around and see such differences. At a stage where we should be encouraging girls to be more passionate about sports, what sort of example do you think this would be for budding sports enthusiasts?

Let us start with changing our thinking and appreciating both the genders in regards of their contribution, be it in terms of financial rewards or others. Change can start small.

Comments

  1. Sundeep ShakyaDecember 7, 2018 at 8:01 AM

    I think organizers didn't want to get attention on that detail and so did not print the big checks for women's competition winners. Glad that you blogged about it!

    Unfortunately, US being developed world is actually not much different in unequal treatment of women.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Upama ShakyaJuly 15, 2019 at 10:16 PM

      Indeed, thank you sundeep dai.
      yes, unfortunately!

      Delete

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