This is an article that I found that I found intriguing partly because El Futbol es Vida for me, :) , but also it presents vital questions often forgotten in the football world. Such as, if all women were allowed to play the beautiful game, how many great footballers would we have? Infinitely more I am inclined to think.
Women’s Soccer, Egyptian Men, and What Is ‘Forbidden’
By Jeff Z. Klein
Tags: Al Jazeera, Egypt, Womens World Cup
It’s one thing to discuss the effect of women’s soccer on prevailing social attitudes in the United States or various countries in Europe or East Asia. But it’s quite another to consider how it affects attitudes in other parts of the world, where the rights of women can be more of a life-and-death matter.
In today’s Times, Michael Slackman reports from Egypt on the genital cutting of pre-adolescent girls, a widespread practice in that country that is encountering increasing opposition from activists and the government. One Egyptian government survey found that an astonishing 96 percent of Egyptian women had undergone the procedure, and Slackman and his photographer Shawn Baldwin found many men who proclaimed that they were in favor of it, or, as one tea shop owner put it, “We support circumcision!” As Slackman writes, “It is a challenge to get men to give up some of their control over women.”
Some of that same attitude is on display in this remarkable seven-minute Al-Jazeera report on women’s soccer in Egypt. As a women’s team practices on a city field, a male player nearby tells the camera: “If my fiancee wanted to play football, I would forbid her. I only respect men playing. It could also distract her from her home. In Egypt we believe the woman should look after the home.” Another says of a female player: “She cannot wear a headscarf and play. This is against religion. Football and sports are haram — forbidden.”
Reports like these remind us of the extra dimension to women’s soccer, one that men’s soccer does not have. In a lot of countries around the world, it takes guts simply to play the game in the first place. In those places, the sight of a woman on a soccer field, the very thought of it, is in itself subversive and dangerous. That’s an important thing to remember as we watch the Women’s World Cup and wonder, if girls everywhere were completely free to play, how many more great female footballers there would be.
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This is a very interesting article to me but for different reasons than what it’s about specifically. Although, I do think it is a very unfortunate situation these women find themselves in with regard to the sport, and that’s without mentioning the bodily mutilation they are forced to go through, which in my view is quite terrible. The interest this article holds for me is with what regards religion. What never ceases to amaze me is the tightly knit role the Islamic tradition plays in the lives of its practitioners with respect to these middle Eastern countries and cultures. It really presses the intellectual feature of a contemplative hermeneutic to its limits in my view. What I mean is that, as a member of human society, it is difficult not to judge certain practices and let them be as they are in order to be clear about them. And if one is able to take this cold and objective view, the question and difficulty that arises is a moral one. While I think that contemporary western culture generally attempts to be as accepting as possible of different practices, there are those who see certain ones as simply abominable, holding no purpose practically, religiously, ethically, and/or especially, humanely. This I think is one way to see the protestors’ perspective. The problem is that they are not simply dealing with a simple tradition which does not let women do this or that or subjects them to mutilation in vacuo. While there is a historical tradition working in the backdrop which such practices are dependent on, what makes the situation so difficult is the religious component – add to that the patriarchal component and now we see obstinacy reach new levels. There are Islamic women movements which are making progress towards having a say in Qu’ranic interpretation and law or, at least, equality and better treatment (although the word ‘better’ here is a relative operant which depends on context for its meaning). But this progress is very slow and such movement is mostly, if not completely, found in America. I think that what is missing here is the ability to say that certain practices are confused. What that means is difficult to flesh out however.
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