Middle East women gaining more freedom — through sports

Honey Thaljieh loves watching international football from her home in Bethlehem. Soon Thaljieh herself might play on global television: She’s the founder of the Palestinians’ new national women’s team.

“In the beginning it was very difficult,” recalls Thaljieh, 26, who also founded the West Bank’s first female football team seven years ago. “People said it wasn’t a game for women. Some said it wasn’t feminine, and others thought men would look at us in our T-shirts.” Today, Palestinians have no less than 16 female outdoor teams and 10 indoor teams.

Welcome to the revolution. “During the past five to 10 years, we’ve witnessed success stories in the Muslim world,” explains Sertac Sehlikoglu, a Turkish Ph.D. student in social anthropolicy who runs the blog Muslim Women In Sports. “Love of sport seems to be female athletes’ primary motivation. They also want to gain physical strength and become fit. Many of them are interested in sports for self-defense purposes, which they hope will provide them a higher self-esteem.”

Today, nine Middle Eastern countries, including the UAE, Qatar and Iran, have women’s football or futsal (indoor football) leagues. “People used to think that football was a strange European thing,” says Farrah Sheikh, a 19-year-old who plays in Dubai’s women’s league. “I had to get special permission to play football in school. Now people are getting used to us playing, though at my university the women’s team is only allowed to play indoors, while the men have two outdoor fields.” Last year Bahrain hosted the world’s first Women’s Football Cup Arabia.

“Football is quite popular among Middle Eastern women,” notes Sehlikoglu. “So are martial arts, swimming and track and field.”

Bahrain’s sprinter star Roqaya Al-Gassra runs fully covered. At last year’s Asian Games, Iran’s Khadijeh Azadpour won gold in sanshou (a combat sport) and Parisa Farshidi silver in taekwondo.
Honey Thaljieh sets her aim on the 2016 Olympics.

“Of course we’re not as good as the other Arab countries, because we don’t have good facilities to practice in,” she says. “I want to improve women’s chances of doing sports.” But she has another goal, too: “People think of us Palestinians as terrorists. I want to show them that we’re peaceful.”

Analysis – In her own words

Ghada Shouaa Heptathlete, Syria’s only Olympic champion (Atlanta 1996)

I left school at 16 and moved to Damascus with the goal of becoming a top athlete. Of course I’m happy that Arab women see me as a role model, but to get top athletes we need a big effort, starting with sports academies for young athletes. But Arab countries don’t have the patience to wait for 10-12 years until their efforts bear fruit.

Arab women have been good at martial arts for a long time, but their new football enthusiasm has been a surprise to me. Of course, to get really good, we need a bigger effort there, too. Men laugh at women’s teams. Instead, they should support them.

I’m proud that I was the first Arab woman to win an Olympic gold, but the Arab world hasn’t utilized this victory. That makes me sad. People say “oh yes, we’re proud,” but they don’t use it to build up sports in their countries.

Of course I hope women’s sports will take off in the Arab world, but sometimes I doubt it. Arabic sports media, like al-Jazeera Sports, use European men, not Arab women, to comment on women’s sports. If it remains like that, women’s sports won’t have a future in the Middle East. But as a woman, I’ll fight for it!