{"id":17179,"date":"2012-03-28T16:16:53","date_gmt":"2012-03-28T12:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=17179"},"modified":"2012-03-30T09:56:32","modified_gmt":"2012-03-30T05:56:32","slug":"finally-saudi-olympic-breakthrough-for-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-sports-news-and-analysis\/finally-saudi-olympic-breakthrough-for-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Finally: Saudi Olympic Breakthrough For Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Crown Prince Nayef\u2019s surprise announcement that Saudi Arabia expects to field at least one woman athlete in the Summer Olympics in London has sparked optimism among some women that the door to female participation in sports has opened a bit wider. Yet some Saudis caution that women should not sacrifice religious faith to appease Western critics of Saudi culture.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has come under withering criticism in the past year for its failure to provide physical education opportunities for girls at public schools and for preventing professional women\u2019s sports teams from organizing. Human Rights Watch has been especially critical of the Saudi government, issuing a 51-page report in February documenting systematic discrimination against women in athletics.<\/p>\n

Last year, Anita DeFranz, chief of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Women and Sports Commission, threatened to ban Saudi Arabia from the games if it didn\u2019t send women athletes.<\/p>\n

However, Crown Prince Nayef, regarded as a hardliner who maintains that Saudi Arabia adheres to the ultra-conservative Salafist ideology of Islam, followed King Abdullah\u2019s game plan to broaden women\u2019s rights. Women in recent months were given the right to vote, run for public office and to work in lingerie shops.<\/p>\n

But women still do not have the right to drive an automobile in urban centers or travel abroad without a male guardian.<\/p>\n

By participating in this summer\u2019s London Olympics, Saudi women move a significant step closer to gaining rights that by competing on the international stage in football, basketball and other fields. The IOC will make a final decision on Saudi Arabia\u2019s proposal in May.<\/p>\n

Tara Umm Omar, a popular Riyadh-based blogger who advises women on Islamic and marriage issues, contends that the earliest Muslim women routinely engaged in sporting events.<\/p>\n

\u201cIslam encourages modesty for women, and to my knowledge there is nothing in the Qur\u2019an and Sunnah [the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad] that discourages sports or exercise,\u201d Omar told The Media Line. \u201cThe prophet raced Aisha, his wife, twice in their lives. Women rode horses in jihad excursions. Doesn\u2019t that count for exercise? In fact, they are doing so in full view of men, albeit while covered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fouzia Muhammad, 51, a teacher in Madinah, told The Media Line, that she now sees possibilities for her youngest daughter to compete in organized sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never had the opportunity to play sport when I was a teenager, and neither did my oldest girls,\u201d Muhammad said. \u201cBut my youngest is 12. Hopefully by the time she is in secondary school, the government will see the benefit of having girls play sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

A likely candidate for the summer games is 18-year-old Dalma Rushdi Malhas, a Saudi equestrian who captured the bronze medal at the 2010 Youth Olympics.<\/p>\n

Malhas\u2019 medal win followed years of training. There are few, if any, Saudi women capable of competing at the Olympic level in any sport. However, the IOC often provides waivers to allow developing nations to send athletes under special conditions.<\/p>\n

Although Saudi sports broadcaster and amateur footballer Reema Abdullah announced this week that she was named as one of 8,000 people to carry the Olympic torch in pre-games events, not all Saudis are convinced female participation is a good idea.<\/p>\n

Saudi women who have made inroads in generally regarded masculine professions have not fared well. Saudi race car driver Marwa Al-Eifa and film director Haifaa Al-Mansour have garnered little support or attention from the Saudi media for their groundbreaking efforts to help Saudi women gain a foothold in sports or the arts. Both woman work in Dubai, where they can freely pursue their professions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing special about these kinds of women, who show off to gain fame,\u201d said Maryam Abdulkader, 41, a marketing professional based in Jeddah. \u201cWhy should Dalma Malhas be a role model for girls when every curve of her body is exposed for the world to see? My husband could never show his face to his family again if our daughters chose this path.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abdulkader echoes a wide-held belief among conservative Saudis that public displays of athleticism by women is shameful. Female role models should be limited to religious figures, such as the prophet\u2019s wives, Aisha bint Abi Bakr and Khadija bint Khuwaylid, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaudi Arabia is being pressured by the West to conform to their idea of morality,\u201d Abdulkader said. \u201cThey have taken the hijab and made it a weapon against us. There can\u2019t even be a discussion of Islamic modesty without Westerners turning it into some kind of extremist thought perpetuated by crazy Saudis. They [the IOC] will slowly chip away at a woman\u2019s modesty to conform to their idea of what a athlete should wear and soon women will be stripped of all dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Umm Omar sees it differently, noting that Islam allows wiggle room. \u201cAs long as Muslim women are not compromising their religion and observing hijab, why not take advantage of concessions in Islam where it does not explicitly prohibit them from participating in sports like the London Olympics?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Umm Omar pointed to many sporting events that allow women to remain modest yet competitive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some sports where Muslim women can observe hijab and not be encumbered by their sports outfits, provided it is designed in a specific way to not impede their movements yet maintain modesty, like in the martial arts, fencing, skiing, equestrian, archery and shooting,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Prince Nayef said as much when he told the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Hayat that Saudi women can participate in the Olympics as long as the events \u201cmeet the standards of women\u2019s decency and don\u2019t contradict Islamic laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christoph Wilcke, Human Right Watch\u2019s senior researcher in Germany, remains unconvinced. \u201cWhile tokenistic participation is welcome, it wouldn\u2019t change our position that the IOC should affect more systemic change,\u201d he told The New York Times this week.<\/p>\n

Umm Omar said that getting Saudi women into the Olympics is only the first step.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really depends on the woman\u2019s understanding of what constitutes hijab and covering the \u2018awrah [intimate parts of the body],\u201d Umm Omar said. \u201cThis varies from different sects down to the individual. If she believes that wearing pants is haram [forbidden] unless covered by a garment that doesn\u2019t show the shape of her legs, how will she compete in this way? Can she compete this way? Would the IOC allow her to complete this way?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROB L. WAGNER: It was a very welcome surprise – the announcement that Saudi Arabia will have at least one woman at the Olympics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":17242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,173,482,10,7],"tags":[1965,674,1981,11500,197,11970,2237,677,1329,366,630,2671,926,1031,12222,18275,385,7461,876,2278,12235,9297,133,177],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}