Girl Child, Leisure and Outdoor Sports in Kolkata: An Intersectional Enquiry

The social institution of sport reflects a society that presupposes the values, mores, norms, and standards of the majority and subsequently determines who can participate in sport and who can be identified as an athlete. Sport Sociologists consider sports as an important leisure activity which facilitates intellectual, physical and moral development of the young generation, especially children. Consequently, Sports and Physical activity were specifically recognized as a ‘Human Right’ in 1978 by UNESCO, supported by The Convention on The Rights of the Child in 1989, to provide equal opportunity for young individuals irrespective of their gender, religion and class to freely participate in any sporting activities.

The present paper addresses through intersectional paradigm how involvement in sports as an active leisure activity among girl children is predominantly proscribed in modern India based on their gender, social class and religion. India has failed to recognize the necessity and significance of ‘active leisure’ for majority young girls in the form of outdoor sports, hence incarcerating them within the domestic sphere of household duties and responsibilities as caregiver. The embedded patriarchal ideology consider girls incompatible to any sporting activities due to their physiological attributes, thus denying them access to pursue sports as a ‘active leisure activity’ compared to their male counterparts. Furthermore, the intersection of gender, social class and religious background intensify such stereotyping and discrimination of young girls, who are further marginalized and prevented from engaging in active leisure activities i.e. outdoor sports. Against this backdrop, with the help of ‘narrative’ analysis of 50 young girls in Kolkata belonging to the age group of 10-14 years, the present paper attempts to reflect how mutual compatibility of gender, class and religion buttress unequal prospects among girl children, accentuating deprivation and silhouette their identity and lived experiences.