Patriarchy, the ultimate hurdle
Updated On: 02 August, 2024 04:17 AM IST | Mumbai | Rosalyn D`mello
If you are female or queer and seek to attain professional excellence, the levels of scrutiny you have to face feel extreme. This is to say nothing of internalised misogyny, which impacts one’s self-image
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Simone Biles competes in the floor exercise event in Paris on July 30. Pic/AFP
I passively follow the ongoing Olympics. I don’t tune in to anything and all the information I gather comes to me via my social media feeds. The only athletes I follow are Simone Biles and Tom Daley. I like glimpsing their lives and particularly enjoy seeing images of Daley knitting while watching the games as a spectator. Biles has a quiet energy about her and ever since she publicly took a break from competing for the sake of her mental health, I felt great admiration for her. A day ago, I read about the complexity of the moves she recently manoeuvred. I also read that her talent and ability are so unique, a new level of difficulty had to be created in order for her to be adequately judged. It’s as if she is competing with herself. I’ve also read about the spirit of camaraderie that she maintains with her competitors, how she encourages them to push themselves and is inspired by their talents. I mean, there are moves named after her!
And yet, recently, after she did some incredibly difficult and challenging move that perhaps no other living person could manage, what so many people fixated on was her hair being out of place. Don’t come for my hair, she allegedly wrote on her own social media account. It vexed me to think of the obvious misogyny behind the vitriol she was receiving for her hair seeming slightly unruly. There’s undoubtedly also a racist element to the backlash. Biles is Black and she has admitted to having a difficult relationship with her hair. To think that a woman could be at the height of her career, not just at the pinnacle of her success but at a point where she is breaking new ground and pushing the limits of the field itself and that instead of celebrating her accomplishments with unfiltered joy, she should, instead, receive backlash for not looking perfect, that some superficial flaw should instead become the focus of global attention.
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