Ganesha

Writing about sport, physical activity, and health, I can keep a promise to a friend. He asked me, all the way from England, the birth place of modern football, to write about gender.  At the same time, my football blog needs to register this amazing sweet and bitter moment in our national team history, a moment that can also give a clear picture of how unfair some aspects of life,  specially football, can be for girls, as a gender issue.

Our women's national football team qualified for the first time in history to the World Cup this year, but the participation was heavily criticized by the media due to the three losses in three games. However, for those who are close to football, the participation itself was a great deed, considering Ecuador does not have a proper women´s league, and our culture does not support female sport participation. The latests surveys and research guided by the ministry of sports in Ecuador show women are less active in our country than men, and according to my personal observation in hundreds of public schools in our country, girls are less active than boys during recess, sport teams, clubs, and daily life. The ancient gender role of a quite and still feminine girl is yet to be challenged in our society, but it seems today the problem is also related to market rules.

Our national team recently surprised the world finishing this year at the top of the Russia 2018 South American Qualifiers, with a perfect 12 points mark in four games, two of them victories against powerhouses like Uruguay and Argentina, beating the argentineans in Buenos Aires for the first time in history for an Ecuador squad, playing very sexy football.   On the other hand, at the local professional football league you have several teams on the verge of going under due to huge debts with former players, other teams, and even sponsors. Only a handful of the 24 professional teams are safe and do not report any financial problems. It is difficult to understand how this sport can manage so badly the millionaire sponsorship support, including government money to the top teams. The success of the national team proves we have the raw materials once again, but still can´t produce top quality goods and services. Antonio Valencia, on his tenth year at the English Premier League playing for Manchester United could vouch it too, but he is so far from the school girls who aren't allowed to play sports at school.

The other day, during a yoga class, where usually women are the majority, the female instructor told us the anecdote about Ganesha, an elephant headed deity of the hindu tradition. Ganesha, who is slow and heavy,  as a child had to compete with his brother Skanda, a fast pace boy who rode an even faster ostrich, in a challenge their parents set for them to obtain the fruit of wisdom. The parents told them the first one to circumambulate the universe three times would win the challenge. As Skanda left rushing at full speed Ganesha remained still, thinking he could never outrun his fast brother, and meditating on the challenge. After some time meditating, he stood up and walk around his parents three times, stating his family was the universe for him, and won.

Girls should be able to play and be active as much as boys. Women should have the same resources in sport as men. Female should have equal opportunities to lead active lifestyles as men.  Girls loose space to boys during recess due to cultural gender roles, and women loose resources to men because their sport is not profitable. Nonetheless, our men league is almost broke and our best players hope to leave the country league as soon as they can. We can go around the world three times looking for justice or answers to this gender issue, but I am sure we could find answers going around the block a couple of times. It does not take the wisdom of an elephant to realize there we have a gender issue to approach.