Korfball - At a Glance
"The world of humanity has two wings-one is
women and the other men. Should one wing
remain weak, flight is impossible" -BAHA'I WRITINGS
IMAGINE a sport combining athleticism, teamwork, hand-eye
coordination, a unique set of tactics and rules - and both men and women, that's
Korfball (getwestlondon, 2013). Korfball provides an opportunity to promote
gender egalitarianism (Gubby, L. & Wellard, I. 2016) and is the only game in the
world which doesn't discriminate between genders (Sandhya, 2003) "only one
game I know where a girl can play along with boys on the same team, and that's
korfball!" (Priyadarshini, S. - Times of India, 2012). Mixed sport is therefore an
incredible opportunity to showcase this understanding, by eliminating divisions
and seeing each other as players rather than genders. Where basketball favours
the unusually tall, and netball only allows two players in a team to score points,
Korfball is a sport that was designed to let everyone play team sport on the same
level as each other - it was engineered to promote teamwork and equality.
If sexual discrimination is objectionable in most other areas of our lives,
why should it be acceptable within sports? (Kirk, D. et al. 2000). Here are few
examples where women feel discriminated on the basis of gender bias in the field
of sports, Anuja Upadhyay social scientist, writer and blogger in organizations
like UN Women, Manushi for Sustainable Development and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) across India and Nepal, Says women are
three times disadvantaged: firstly by being a woman; secondly by being a woman
from a developing country; and thirdly by competing in a male dominated field
like sports. Sania Mirza, the first South Asian woman, appointed as United
Nations Women's Goodwill Ambassador who has also been honoured by the
Indian government with Padma Shri and Arjuna awards said that "Women face
discrimination" with it she also added "I think a lot of controversies that I
had faced in my career was because I am woman. Had I been a man, I could have
avoided some of the controversies." (Mirza, S. 2014) India's former sprint queen,
P.T. Usha broke down in front of the media regarding the discrimination meted
out to her in 2009 (Nagrajan & Kanthwal, 2010). Incidentally, even in
international sport, there are several instances of discrimination such as Chrissie
Ann Wellington four-time Ironman Triathlon World Champion said in her
interview that she was surprised about the inequality in professional women's
cycling. The separation of men and women in sports has not only led to the
entrenchment of presumed difference, but this difference has also resulted in a
hierarchy, where men's sport is considered to be professional, and a woman's
recreational. whereas Caster Semenya, the South African 800m Olympic
medallist in 2009 was banned by the IAAF (International Association of Athletics
Federations) believing that she was too manly to have legitimately won a
women's race by a huge 2 second margin (The new York times, 2009) and later
was given back her medal and was allowed to compete with women. In 2016 the
U.S. Women's National Soccer Team, winners of four Olympic gold medals,
three World Cups, given No. 1 team ranking in the world by FIFA (though FIFA
enrolled women in soccer nearly after 60 years compared to Men's World cup:
Bernard, A. B. & Busse, M. R. 2004; V. A. & Hohman, 2011) alleged that they
were being treated like second - class citizens in their own country and also
didn't get paid in comparison to the U.S. men's team
