Swapna Barman Battled Toothache For Gold; Who Says Women Are Frail?

Yesterday, Swapna Barman won an Asiad gold despite a toothache. With a kinesio tape around her jaw, she triumphed in heptathlon at the 2018 Asian Games. This is the first ever gold medal for India in this category in Asian Games and Barman brought it home with grit and determination. She didn’t just make us proud as Indians but once again questioned the stigma around women’s pain tolerance levels. That women are weak and dainty is something most of us grow up believing. Men always pride themselves in being grittier and tougher than women. But how true is this assumption, which has almost become a gendered trait?

According to The Indian Express, Barman’s tooth infection flared up after a root canal treatment, leaving her with pounding pain in her jaw during the games. Since there was no time for treatment, Barman had to compete with a kinesio tape stuck around the right side of her jaw.

Those who know how bad a tooth infection can hurt will know what it is like. The deep throbbing, the radiating pain which sometimes spreads to you neck, shoulder and even arms doesn’t let you eat or sleep or work with full focus

Now imagine competing in seven athletic events through that pain, over the course of two days. Barman even did a high jump in this event, while most can barely open their mouths to speak during such severe infection. I have seen grownups reduced to tears from dental pain and here is a 21-year-old who won an athletics gold medal for her country, in such an exhausting category nonetheless.

Stop saying that women have lower threshold of pain than men

For centuries, women have been ridiculed for being frail and tender. Our feminine conduct is often mistaken as dainty and a sign of weakness. Society instills the beliefs that men are strong and women are weak in us since childhood. This toughness isn’t just physical strength. It is a common belief that men are more capable than women when it comes to enduring pain. All this, despite the fact that it is the womankind who endure labour pains, the mommy of all aches.

SOME TAKEAWAYS-

• Swapna Barman won the first ever gold medal for India at Asian games in heptathlon.
• Barman was suffering from swelling and severe pain due to dental infection, but did this not hamper her performance in any way.
• Her performance breaks the stigma that women have low tolerance levels for pain.

The capacity to endure pain is something which we take for granted, since we face gut wrenching, nausea inducing pain on a monthly basis. Men, on the other hand, take a certain pleasure out of boasting about their pain tolerance capacity. Every cut and bruise and swelling needs to be bragged about, of it not being a big deal, because that is what makes them manly. Or at least reaffirms their belief in their own manliness.

Endurance thus has become a weapon used to restrict women

Do not take up sports, because you won’t be able to bear the exhaustion. Leave outdoor tasks to men, you are too dainty for such hard physical labour. Why do you want to take up rock climbing or judo? You won’t be able to bear the pain if you get hurt.

Barman just broke all these stigmas and has proved that women are as gritty as men. They can not just tolerate pain but keep working through it. Men may be physically stronger, but women have always been mentally stronger. Endurance is more of a psychological thing than physical. How else can people explain when women go about their lives just days after labour? When they work through periods like it is all a part and parcel of their daily lives? Or when they care for families through sickness?

All said and done, we must thank Barman. Not just for winning us this prestigious gold medal, but for shutting up people who call women frail. For standing tall as an example for little girls and telling them that women are both mentally and physically strong and no one should tell them otherwise. We wish her much more glory and success, so that she continue to be such an inspiration to everyone.

Picture Credit: Sportstarlive

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Yamini Pustake Bhalerao is a writer with the SheThePeople team, in the Opinions section.  The views expressed are author’s own.