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Empowerment has been defined by many scholars (Gutierrez, 1990; Rappaport, 1984) as a process in which individuals from an underprivileged social group achieve control over their lives by developing their skills. Women’s empowerment is described by Kabeer (2005) and, Mosedale (2005) as the process by which women expand and reconstruct what they can be, do, and accomplish in a situation which they were denied previously.

Following Rahman (2013), Kabeer (2005), and Mosedale (2005), four indicators of women’s empowerment were set for the present study: to be what they wanted to be, to do what they wanted to do, the ability to make a decision, and economic independence.

The process of women’s empowerment usually takes place in various settings, such as formal education, feminist organizations, clubs, and religious and voluntary organizations (Rappaport, 1985; Stromquist, 1988). Their involvement with these types of organizations increases the women’s role, thereby leading to empowerment.

Sport may represent one arena in which women can gain valued qualities and abilities at the personal level (Cantor & Bernay, 1992). Two characteristics of sport particularly suggest its empowering capability: first, the focus of sport on physicality and the body which can enhance women’s understanding of their bodily potential (Lenskyj, 1986), and second, as the sport takes place in a competitive environment, women participants can develop skills that not only lead to success in sports (e.g., persistence, competitiveness) but can also be applied to a variety of life situations (Cantor & Bernay, 1992).

Hargreaves (2002) argued that sport provides a space in which women can renegotiate concepts of femininity and masculinity, challenge stereotypes that label women as weak and inferior, and demonstrate to their communities what they are capable of achieving. Other scholars like Pohl, Borrie, and Patterson (2000) identified that sports have the capability to break down the traditional gender norms and stereotypes, thereby increasing women’s empowerment through sports. On a similar note, Blinde et al. (1993), Kane (1998), and Nelson (1994) argued that women would be able to come in contact with each other through the social network created by sports. As such, promoting girls’ and women’s involvement in sports is an important tool in gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Bangladesh is no exception to this trend and sportswomen are becoming public figures: cricketer Jahanara Alam, footballer Sabina Khatun, sprinter Shirin Akter, weightlifter Mabia Akhter, table tennis player Zobera Rahman Linu, and archer Shyamoli Roy to name just a few. The limited studies conducted on women’s sport in Bangladesh have found that sports have a long-term impact at both individual and community level (NUK, 2016; Shefali, 2014), and have empowered women by allowing them to challenge the discriminatory social norms and exhibit their sporting capabilities, thus creating an enabling environment for gender equality (Shefali, 2014). Their success stories have created a demand among women to take up sports as a profession in recent years (Karim, 2012).

In Bangladesh, women’s participation in sports has started to rise significantly, particularly in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Today, the success stories of women’s sports are highlighted on the front pages of the newspapers, such as the victories in the Women's Asia Cup T20I and SAFF U-15 Football Championship (Hoque, 2018a). The fact that Bangladesh’s ICC (International Cricket Council) Global Women’s Twenty20 International team is ranked ninth in the world (Hoque, 2018a) has also encouraged more women to get engaged in cricket. Football started gaining popularity among women in Bangladesh in 2011 when government-funded primary school tournaments took place in schools all over the country. Today, over one million women in Bangladesh play soccer as a result of this tournament (Hoque, 2018b).

The Bangladesh Women’s Hockey team also gained popularity very recently after clinching sixth place in the Asia Hockey Cup in 2018 (Ullah, 2018). In swimming, Mahfuza Khatun Shila won two gold medals in the 12th South Asia Games held in 2016, while her gold medal made Mabia Akther Simanta the first female Bangladeshi gold medalist in weightlifting (Uddin, 2017). The achievements of the women’s archery team have been highlighted by their getting to the semi-final of the 2017 Asian Archery Championship (Ullah, 2018), while women shooters won gold in the 2010 South Asian Games and silver in the 2016 Asian Airgun Championships (“Shooting team leaves”, 2017).

Though women’s participation in basketball is limited in Bangladesh compared to cricket and football, the women's basketball team has participated in various international events since the formation of the national women's basketball team in 2009, including the first South Asian Women's Basketball Championship in 2016 (“Gaining ground for women's basketball”, 2018). Indeed, increased participation of women in sports from among non-sports women is a clear indication of their being inspired by women’s sports which only a few decades ago were completely absent.

Researchers in this area admit that sports empower women who take part in them. However, the extent to which women’s sports contribute to the empowerment of women who are not engaged in sports has not yet been studied with special reference to Bangladesh. The present study is intended to investigate whether non-sports women consider sports as an instrument of empowerment after observing the success of sportswomen. It mainly intends to answer three basic questions: a) do sportswomen have any impact on the empowerment of non-sports women? b) do non-sports women value sports as a means of empowerment? and c) how does society value women’s sport?

For the present study, primary data were collected in two phases. In the first phase, quantitative data were collected from both sports and non-sports women on their socioeconomic status and the nature of their engagement in sports using a semi-structured questionnaire. The second phase of the study was qualitative, where in-depth interviews were conducted with the respondents using a checklist. Dhaka City corporation area was purposively selected for this study due to time and resource constraints. Books, journal articles, newspapers, and other published documents were also reviewed through the internet for secondary data collection.

Sample Selection. For quantitative data collection, two groups of women were chosen as respondents―sportswomen (group A) and non-sports women (group B). “Sportswomen” were those actively and professionally associated with physical sports (cricket, football, swimming, hockey, archery, etc.) and competing at national or international level. Women who did not match these criteria were termed “non-sports women.”

For group A, sportswomen were selected from 10 different sports in which they were primarily engaged and all were members of their respective national sports federations. In parallel to this, the immediate impact of sports is expected to be higher on the empowerment of women who are involved in pursuing education. For this reason, students aged from 15 to 24 were selected for group B following the definition of “youth” by UNICEF (2018) which covers college level. A total of 200 female respondents were interviewed in this phase.

To ensure representative participation, a Probability Proportional to Size (PPS) sampling technique was applied to determine the sample size of group A. Using the PPS method, the sample size was determined as 80 from 10 sports, namely: cricket (n=23), football (n=12), shooting (n=12), archery (n=10), swimming (n=6), handball (n=6), athletics (n=5), hockey (n=4), gymnastics (n=1), and tennis (n=1). After that, a Simple Random Sampling (SRS) method was used to select the respondents from each sport’s group.

For group B, the sample was determined by using a multi-stage cluster sampling method. At the first stage, two city corporations of Dhaka City (North and South) were taken as two clusters. Each of these clusters was divided into five zones. From the list of the colleges in these ten zones, one from each zone was selected through purposive sampling. In the case of two selected colleges, management did not allow researchers to conduct a survey and they were replaced by two other colleges from those zones. As a result, 120 students were interviewed with 12 students selected conveniently from each college.

Data Collection Technique. Two different semi-structured questionnaires were administered for face-to-face interviews with the sports and non-sports women. The questionnaires were developed by the researchers based on the review of the literature and in conformity with the study objectives. The questions included in the questionnaires were related to the respondent’s demographic details and engagement in sports.

Data Analysis. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 24.0) was used to process and analyze the collected data for descriptive statistics.

Sample Selection. In the second phase, qualitative samples were collected from the respondents who volunteered to participate in the in-depth interviews. A sample size of the 18 most notable and popular sportswomen of Bangladesh were chosen for this phase. In the case of non-sports women, qualitative data were collected through the semi-structured questionnaire used in the quantitative phase.

Data Collection Technique. A standard checklist was developed by the researchers for conducting the in-depth interviews. The interviews focused on the respondent’s attitude to women’s sport, including family attitudes toward women’s sports, social attitudes toward women’s sports, childhood and present engagement in sports, support from family and society to take part in sports, the gender difference in sports, and challenges faced by them while taking part in sports. Each face-to-face interview lasted around 60 minutes.

Data Interpretation. During the interview, field notes were taken to record potential themes which were transcribed later. Each interview was read repeatedly and the important information was initially coded. After that, some emerging themes were identified from the codes. Information related to the study objectives was highlighted and the themes with the same meanings were categorized into several themes which were analyzed thematically (Corbin & Strauss, 2014). Verbatim statements relevant to the themes were extracted from the interviews.

Since data were collected from sportswomen and non-sports women, three female graduate investigators along with a female researcher were fully involved in data collection. Each individual respondent’s verbal consent was obtained after the objectives of the study had been explained. In the case of sportswomen permission was sometimes required from a coach as both coaches and federations often impose restrictions on discussing anything about life and conditions with outsiders. Researchers did not offer any gift or remuneration to the respondents for their time as they voluntarily participated in this study.

Care was taken to arrange appointments with the sportswomen in their off time so as not to affect their income or practice. To ensure a familiar and welcoming atmosphere, interviews with the sportswomen were conducted at their training facilities and those with the female students on college premises. Parental consent was obtained in the case of respondents under 18 years of age and these interviews were conducted in the presence of a parent or parents. Respondents were told they could skip any question with which they were not comfortable. Finally, the respondents were assured that strict confidentiality would be maintained regarding personal information disclosed to the investigators or researchers.

In the present study, an attempt has been made to cover similar age groups so that a comparative picture can be drawn. Students were selected from Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) level, though many sportswomen had not achieved that level as some of them were from underprivileged groups. The mean age of the non-sports women was 17.43 and for the sportswomen it was 19.45. No sportswoman was aged less than 16 years.

The overwhelming majority of the sports (88.8%) and non-sports women (97.5%) were Muslim which mirrors the national picture. By education, 82.5% of the non-sports women and 37.5% of the sportswomen were at HSC level at the time of data collection. In terms of marital status, 92.5% of non-sports women and 95% of sportswomen were unmarried. More than half of the sportswomen (56.3%) lived with their friends or in hostels as their parents were living outside Dhaka. The non-availability of coaches in many districts and the presence of better practice facilities lead them to move away from their families. The scenario was the opposite for the non-sports women, 90.8% of whom were living with parents. The primary occupation of the main wage earner for both the non-sports women and sportswomen’s families was business.

The economic status of the non-sports women and sportswomen has an impact on their engagement in sports. Table 2 shows that 58.9% of the sportswomen were in the income group below BDT 20,000 (USD$ 236.85) which is less than the average monthly income per household in urban areas of Bangladesh, BDT 22,600 (USD$ 267.64) (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2018). It shows that most of the sportswomen were not rich in terms of economic background, indicating that women from lower-income groups tend to take part in sports to a higher degree. Their families do not have sufficient financial resources to support their education. Taking that into account, they opted for sports where their food and lodgings were often supported by the club and they could also earn fees from their sporting activities.

The study found that the engagement of family members in sports elevates the possibility of a woman being engaged in sports later. In total, 68.8% of the sportswomen reported that they had family members engaged in sports which seemed to be instrumental to getting financial and other support from their family, while only 13.3% of the non-sports women mentioned that they had family members engaged in sports, which would be likely to create less impetus among them to get so engaged.

Similarly, 81.3% of the sportswomen received encouragement from their families to get engaged in sports while only 3% of the non-sports women received such encouragement.

The results of the study indicate that every social group interprets empowerment according to their own specific reality. Little more than one-third of the non-sports women opined that women’s empowerment is the ability to decide while more than half of the sportswomen mentioned that women’s empowerment means to do the things that they wanted to do. Non-sports women who are not always able to make decisions in their family and about personal matters mentioned the ability to make decisions as women’s empowerment. In a different interpretation, sportswomen who had wanted to be involved in sports since childhood by denying social barriers stated that empowerment means to do what they wanted to do.

The indicators for women’s empowerment were higher among the sportswomen than the non-sports women. More than half of the sportswomen secured an empowered position within their family by spending their income on the family. Though they were few overall, a certain proportion of sportswomen (8.8%) met their own needs and 5% of them looked after their family with their income from sports. No such economic empowerment was found among the non-sports women as only 1.6% worked as private tutors and their earnings were negligible. Similarly, less than half of the non-sports women stated that they had the ability to make decisions on their own while almost all the sportswomen could do so. One of the non-sports women said:

My parents take all the major decisions for me, where to go, what to do, and how to do. I cannot do anything without their consent.

The practice of traveling alone as a part of women’s empowerment was also noticed less among the non-sports women (50.4%) than the sportswomen (86.3%). As stated by one of the non-sports women:

I never traveled alone out of my district. My family could not even imagine this.

The study also found that a significant portion of non-sports women expressed their interest in playing as a result of watching women’s sports, though they were not willing to pursue sports as a profession. To act in line with the recognized social norms, values, and behaviors, they established a kind of self-denial among them which prevents them from getting engaged in sports, which can be labeled as “denial perspective.”

A lack of preference was observed among the non-sports women in terms of participating in sports which means they do not really consider sports as a means of empowerment. None of the non-sports women mentioned “being a sportswoman” as a childhood aim. Likewise, at present none of them wanted to be sportswomen either. Moreover, unwillingness was the major reason (40.6%) for not participating in sports. Only 10% of the non-sports women stated that they would have engaged in sports had they been allowed to take part. In addition, only one-fourth of the non-sports women believed that they were deprived of independence because of their disengagement in sports.

Additionally, the different forms of resistance (social and family denial) that have been imposed upon women and girls who attempt to engage in sports act as a discouragement to non-sports women to take part. ‘What is women’s sport? Why do women need to play?’ are the kinds of comments faced by non-sports women who wanted to play in childhood. As stated by one of the non-sports women:

The entire basketball team for women in our school was canceled because girls would have to wear shorts to play.

Another non-sports woman mentioned:

I loved to play cricket in childhood, but my mother always told me that no one would marry a girl who plays outside. For this reason, I discontinued sports.

The lack of demand for sports among the non-sports women was the outcome of limited earning opportunities from women’s sports. In Bangladesh, indeed, throughout the world, a huge remuneration gap exists between male and female players. Sportswomen in Bangladesh, other than those on a national team, do not receive any regular remuneration though the majority of them need financial support. As mentioned by a sportswoman:

Income is a major factor in sports careers. If it was paid well, they would get permission to continue sports after marriage. Most of the women left their sports careers after marriage as it is not well-paid.

Another sportswoman stated:

Almost all the women players need monetary support as they are from poor families. For many families, sport is a way of earning, not entertainment.

Even the national team itself does not receive regular remuneration despite having dire need of it. As usual, a wide gap also exists between the match fees earned by men and women players in Bangladesh. In the case of domestic sports, while male cricketers earn around BDT 50,000 (USD$ 592.08) per match, women cricketers earn only BDT 600 (USD$ 7.0) per match or 1.2% of what the men are paid. The salary paid to each member of the national women cricket team, BDT 30,000 (USD$ 355.25), is only a mere 7.5% of the 400,000 (USD$ 4736.66) the men are paid (Karim, 2018).

The findings of the study also indicate that due to the absence of star sportswomen before this generation, non-sports women are not inspired to get engaged in sports. During the study, all the sportswomen mentioned that they were initially inspired by their father or another male sports family member rather than any female member. Later they were inspired by watching the sports involving Bangladesh’s star players. Furthermore, today there are Bangladeshi sportsmen who are known around the globe and are admired by all sections of Bangladeshi society, but this is not yet the case for sportswomen. One of the sportswomen stated:

In childhood, I used to play with my father who was a football player. We read the sports news in the newspaper together. He encouraged me to participate in the school sports events. He is the main inspiration behind my success.

As mentioned by one cricket player:

I used to play cricket with my elder cousins in childhood. Mashrafe Bin Mortaza was their favorite player. We watched the World Cup and other matches together. From them, I came to know about other sports icons of the world and started to follow them. Now Shakib Al Hasan is my idol.

All the above-mentioned issues are significant and interact in deciding whether a woman will follow a career as a sportswoman or not. Accordingly, non-sports women are not considering sports as a means of empowerment, and therefore are not yet willing to see sports as a potential profession.