Kristy Ram­nar­ine

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

At every ma­jor sport­ing event, mu­sic plays a cen­tral role in set­ting the mood, en­er­gis­ing ath­letes, and en­gag­ing the crowd. But for too long, the pop­u­lar Car­ni­val hits have been at the tip of every DJ’s fin­ger­tips, of­ten ob­jec­ti­fy­ing women and girls.

DJs are now be­ing chal­lenged to cre­ate a dif­fer­ent playlist for sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties in the coun­try. The chal­lenge is be­ing thrown down to DJs by Dr Gabrielle Ho­sein, se­nior lec­tur­er at the In­sti­tute for De­vel­op­ment and Gen­der Stud­ies (IGDS) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI).

She is call­ing on them to re­think the mu­sic se­lec­tion for sports events, es­pe­cial­ly those in­volv­ing chil­dren and youth ath­letes.

Dr Ho­sein has a point­ed ques­tion for all in­volved in shap­ing the fu­ture of youth sports: “Where are the spaces for chil­dren’s de­vel­op­ment and youth de­vel­op­ment that are safe from the con­stant sex­u­al­is­ing of women and girls that takes place every­where in our so­ci­ety?”

Her con­cern isn’t just about mu­sic for mu­sic’s sake. She said, “We have to ask our­selves, is this mu­sic healthy for them? They are not go­ing to hear mu­sic at the Olympics. As a com­mu­ni­ty, from the top, from the min­istry to cor­po­rate en­ti­ties, to coach­es, to sport­ing as­so­ci­a­tions and par­ents, we need to ask our­selves: Are we giv­ing the chil­dren the best chances on and off the field?”

IGDS, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (GML), has part­nered for an ini­tia­tive called Re­spect Her Game. “Re­spect Her Game chal­lenges the sex­u­al­i­sa­tion of women and girls in sport,” she said. “There are three phas­es: con­ver­sa­tion, the Sport & Mu­sic Mix Com­pe­ti­tion, and cor­po­rate part­ner­ship.” IGDS will al­so be part­ner­ing with Sorop­tomists of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Dr Ho­sein, who has spent over 20 years in Caribbean fem­i­nist move­ment-build­ing, high­light­ed that the aim is to do what’s best for the ath­lete. She said sports was one of the few places where girls are val­ued for be­ing phys­i­cal­ly strong and fit, and where their bod­ies are not sex­u­alised.

As a moth­er of a 14-year-old fe­male ath­lete, Dr Ho­sein shared her con­cerns: “I felt that we were do­ing our ath­letes a dis­ser­vice.”

She said, “Sports is one of the few places where girls are val­ued for be­ing phys­i­cal­ly strong and fit, where their bod­ies aren’t sex­u­alised. Yet, when I see how we as a so­ci­ety frame them with cer­tain mu­sic, I feel like we’re do­ing a dis­ser­vice.” The ini­tia­tive seeks to align the mu­sic at sports events with the val­ues of em­pow­er­ment and phys­i­cal strength that should be cel­e­brat­ed in these spaces.

“On a per­son­al lev­el, you have the kids, the par­ents, the coach­es, but then the en­vi­ron­ment that they are in is not aligned with any­thing that is hap­pen­ing to give our girls and boys the best chance of be­ing the best ath­letes they can be.

“I don’t want mu­sic that’s sex­u­al­is­ing women at the mo­ment that I am try­ing to tell her to be con­fi­dent about your strength and your de­ter­mi­na­tion and your abil­i­ty to use your body in a way to bring suc­cess, which you’ve re­al­ly trained hard for. Apart from the choice of songs, the mu­sic is blast­ed so loud that sup­port­ers can hard­ly hear them­selves.”

Dr Ho­sein said that loud mu­sic can al­so af­fect neu­ro­di­verse chil­dren and ath­letes of all ages. “We have many non-di­ag­nosed ath­letes. The neu­ro­di­verse ath­letes may find mu­sic so loud as to be over-stim­u­lat­ing and dys­reg­u­lat­ing, af­fect­ing their be­hav­iour, per­for­mance, and even emo­tion­al state, and need for re­cov­ery when they get home.”

Re­spect Her Game: Sport & Mu­sic Mix Com­pe­ti­tion is a cre­ative event cel­e­brat­ing the pow­er and pas­sion of women in sports. Mem­bers of the pub­lic are in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate by craft­ing the ul­ti­mate sports playlist that cham­pi­ons women’s ath­leti­cism and achieve­ments. Whether you’re in­spired by leg­endary fe­male ath­letes, icon­ic sports mo­ments, or sim­ply the strength and ded­i­ca­tion that women bring to every game, your playlist will am­pli­fy the en­er­gy of women’s sports across the globe. Fur­ther de­tails on the project will be re­leased in the com­ing days.

The project co­in­cides with this year’s In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day ob­ser­vances, themed “Ac­cel­er­at­ing Ac­tion.”