Sportswomen’s stories of grit and grace

Sportswomen’s stories of grit and grace

What it means to have a female experience while being an athlete in Pakistan is to consistently fight adversity, and both women have proven their mettle on and off the field.

For International Women’s Day 2022, both Kulsoom and Palwasha’s comments may just mean more than others because of their sheer will keep the enthusiasm alive despite facing discrimination and social pressures.

For Kulsoom, her biggest challenge was just the fact that in her household there were no men. That meant having to hear all kinds of unsavoury attacks not only on her intentions to become an athlete but also making ends meet financially, as the country does not provide development programs for youth on any level.

She belongs to the persecuted community of Hazaras in Quetta and for her to lose her parents at a very young age, then to be adopted by her older sister Zehra and her husband Sarwar Ali, who taught Kulsoom karate but was killed in sectarian violence for their faith meant a multitude of hardships.

“I didn’t even have YouTube at the time, I was too young, and when my mentor, my teacher Ali was killed, I was very low, very young and I would keep training in my room. We came to Karachi to escape the persecution, but I have grown up in a household without a male in it, and that means we as women were never taken seriously and we had to struggle financially,” Kulsoom told The Express Tribune.

“I have seen the time when I had cut my very long hair. I was very young, but I understood that my sister was sewing clothes, doing embroidery and teaching at the same time to make ends meet. I thought to ease her financial burden I should cut my hair, because I would need to use too much shampoo for it.

“I did that because I understood the challenges of being a woman in this country, not having financial security either and the social stigma attached to working women. My sister broke into tears and she hugged me when she found out what I had done. So obviously pursuing sports and karate was more personal because I wanted to carry on what my brother-in-law had taught. I wanted to win medals, I wanted to make a mark. There came determination with all the severe circumstances I saw.”

Palwasha echoes Kulsoom’s views when it comes to the challenges she saw in her playing career and as a young girl picking up sports for life.

“I feel one of the biggest challenges was that there weren’t many women participants to begin with. There was a lack of female participation on the national level,” said the South Asian Games medallist and seven-times women’s singles national champion.

“I come from a conservative family so there were always these issues on transportations, no safe places to pursue sports as the parents would generally be scared to leave their girls to train because there weren’t many women. I have seen that the lack of academies and the grass-roots development had been a constant issue, and it remains so for many, but more so when I was younger.

“I feel there was this mindset and the barrier. We could never play freely. We live in a male-dominated society. These are just a few major challenges among others that we constantly face.”

She urges women in her message to continue the hard work and not give up. The 10-time women’s doubles national champion and international player Palwasha wants women to be productive.

“My message for the girls and women is that they must do everything, follow their dreams wholeheartedly, be all-in and leave no stone unturned in going for their goals that they set. They should be able to have peace in their heart that they did everything they could to make their mark.”

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