Sports Empower Women, It Encourages Them To Speak Up

Nelson Mandela said, “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.” He was right about the fact that sports have the power to inspire and to bring change in the world. A sport has the power to fight gender inequality by teaching women and girls the value of teamwork, self-reliance and resilience. It helps females to understand their bodies and build confidence, especially during adolescence thus breaking feminine stereotypes.

Key Takeaways:

• Sports have the power to fight gender inequality by teaching women and girls the value of teamwork, self-reliance and resilience. 
• Initiatives, teamwork, confidence building, leadership are few of the contributions of sports that help in empowering women.
• Leadership helps women to speak up. It helps women to present their stories in front of the world and inspire others.
• A person who knows their strengths and weakness can only be empowered when they are confident enough to communicate them in order to use the opportunities as they come.

Initiatives

Many sports organisation have started initiatives that recognise women sports and thus help in empowering girls.  These initiative aims to combine life skills with sports practice. For example, UN Women and International Olympic committee launched an initiative ‘One Win Leads To Another’ in 2016. It combines sports practice with life-skills education for girls in the most vulnerable, and often violent, communities. When such initiatives are started girls have even bigger dreams and aspiration to achieve these dreams.

 Women in sports develop the skill of speaking up and this helps them to present their stories and thus inspire others. Speaking up is a major step to empowerment.

Building confidence

Sports develop physical strength and endurance in a person. Thus it helps to build confidence. Also when women and girls take part in sports competition, success in such competition helps them build self-confidence. Confidence in oneself helps in self-empowerment.  A person who knows their strengths and weakness can only be empowered when they are confident enough to communicate them in order to use the opportunities as they come.

Also read: Sports Authority Of India To Dispose Sexual Harassment Cases: Kiren Rijju

Develop leadership

Sports involve teamwork.  Major sports like football, basketball, etc are team sports. Teams also have a captain who has to manage the team, lead the team and motivate the team. The captain thus through sports gain leadership skills. Besides the captain other members also learn leadership skill through sports. Leadership helps women to speak up. It helps women to present their stories in front of the world and inspire others. Women in sports develop this skill and this helps them to present their stories to others and thus inspire others. Speaking up is a major step to empowerment.

Sports have the power to fight gender inequality by teaching women and girls the value of teamwork, self-reliance and resilience. 

Slamming gender stereotypes

Women in sports now are involved in every sports activity that a man is involved in. Sports is a way to end gender stereotypes that a girl can't do it all. When women in a sport watch themselves doing the same things the men are doing they feel empowered, they feel that there is nothing in the world that they can't do just because they are females.

Also read: Here’s How Sports Help Adolescents’ Cope With Mood Swings

Today's women in sport also are evidence of the fact that sport empowers women. Some of the women in sport who are role models are Sania Mirza, Serena Williams, etc.