Tennis star Sania Mirza on Thursday revealed that as a child, she was once asked to stop playing as “no one would marry” her if her complexion turned “dark” due to the rigours of an outdoor sport.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum here during a discussion on women and leadership, Ms. Mirza said, “To start with, parents, neighbours, aunties and the uncles (need to) stop telling you how dark you will become and no one will marry you if you play a sport. I was just eight and everybody thought nobody is going to marry me because I would get dark.”
Reflecting on her journey, Sania said she had just sprint legend P.T. Usha to look up to in her growing up years but the times have evolved for the better and several women athletes are becoming role models for the current crop of aspiring athletes.
“I feel proud that I had, may be, a little part to play in women taking up sport. The only sportswoman I could look up to was P.T. Usha and she was a couple of generations before me. Today, we can name P.V. Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Dipa Karmakar, so many of them,” she said.
“We still have some way to go...I still don’t think there are equal opportunities. But we have superstars now and they are the biggest in sports outside cricket. Imagine what will happen they actually get equal opportunities,” she asserted.
Elaborating her take on the general attitude towards professionally successful women, Sania cited a recent interaction to assert that women are still judged for how good a homemaker they are.
