Fatwas, Feminism, and Forehands: The Life of Indian Tennis Superstar Sania Mirza“At the end of

Fatwas, Feminism, and Forehands: The Life of Indian Tennis Superstar Sania Mirza“At the end of October last year, Mirza earned the biggest women’s doubles title of her career. Partnering with Cara Black, Mirza won the WTA Finals, the season-ending championship that consists solely of the year’s top eight teams. She also won her third mixed doubles Grand Slam at the U.S. Open, and a gold medal in the Asian Games.Just one month later, Mirza’s year got even better when she was named UN Women Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia. She was the first South Asian woman to be appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador in the organization’s history.Many of the news reports on the announcement carried headlines to the effect of "No Respect For Women in India, Says Sania Mirza.” As a result, she was attacked mercilessly in both mainstream and social media. Once again, Mirza was faced with unrelenting criticism during a period of her life that should have been spent celebrating her personal and professional successes.But Mirza didn’t ignore the criticism, and despite the fact that the widespread headline was not a nuanced representation of what Mirza had said, she didn’t apologize or back down. Instead, she used this as yet another opportunity to speak up for herself and for South Asian women, by sending the following message in a long series of tweets (edited for clarity):Just to make a couple of things very clear: I did NOT say that there is no respect for women in India. I am the ambassador for the region and I would never be where I am today if the country hadn’t given me all this love. But I am fortunate, very fortunate. There are millions of women who are less fortunate in this part of the world and have been victims of abuse, physical or sexual, and have not been allowed to follow their dreams because they were a girl! So whether you guys like to accept it or not, this is the truth. And yes, I do believe that if I was a man I would not have faced certain unnecessary controversies that I did! And some language that is being used here on Twitter doesn’t seem too respectful to me!! So some of you need to clean your tongue first before wanting to claim that you respect women and people in general. And read the whole article, not just a sensationalized headline before commenting please, because the headline is exactly what certain media uses to grab your attention! I have made myself very clear, and will stand for what I believe in and address the issue of gender inequality.“What a great response!Read the full piece here -- source link

More pics about