"Sports hijabs help Muslim women to Olympic success"
"New sportswear designed for women who want to cover up, and some important changes to the rules, are inspiring Muslim girls to take up sport – and compete internationally" - The Guardian
Lots of folks weighing in the comments on the article linked above, and in other articles around the internet on this topic. What do you think, yourself? Don't let your media tell you how to think or reason.
And for the snarky remarks I read somewhere about modest head covering girls needing luck to play beach volleyball: I would LOVE to see a modestly dressed team in "burkini" go up against the nearly nudes and WIN one! :)
And for the snarky remarks I read somewhere about modest head covering girls needing luck to play beach volleyball: I would LOVE to see a modestly dressed team in "burkini" go up against the nearly nudes and WIN one! :)
In the meantime, are you watching for head-covered athletes in the 2012 London games? Look for:
Wojdan Shaherkani, of Saudi Arabia, 16, in Judo. on August 3.
Maziah Mahusin, of Brunei Darussalem, 19, in Women's 400m - Round 1, on August 3.
In Women's 100m preliminaries, August 3:
Wojdan Shaherkani, of Saudi Arabia, 16, in Judo. on August 3.
Maziah Mahusin, of Brunei Darussalem, 19, in Women's 400m - Round 1, on August 3.
In Women's 100m preliminaries, August 3:
Tahmina Kohistani, of Afghanistan, 23.
Noor Hussain Al-Malki, of Qatar, 17.
Shinoona Salah Al-Habsi, of Oman, 19.
Fatima Sulaiman Dahman, of Yemen, 19.
Soulmaz Abbaslazad, of Islamic Republic of Iran, 28, in Women's Single Sculls Finals, August 4.
On August 4, Women's 50m Rifle Qualifications:
Bahya Mansour Al Hamad, of Qatar, 20.
Elaheh Ahmadi, of Islamic Republic of Iran, 30.
Azza Alqasmi, of Bahrain, 27.
Maryam Arzouqi, of Kuwait, 29.
Mahlagha Jambozorg, of Islamic Republic of Iran, 20.
This is by no means a complete listing of all Olympians who cover, but just a short listing that I put together of athletes who are scheduled for the next couple of days. Please click the links to the athlete's names and you will be on the official London 2012 web pages, where you can research more athletes and sports that may have a representative of the head covering community participating.
Not to leave out any of our men who cover, I did notice a few Sikh gentlemen listed from India, who I believe will be allowed to participate in sports with their head coverings as well.
If you know of or find more, feel free to send a link here. I will allow links to post automatically for the next couple of days. Hopefully we won't get spammed or flamed during this time! Please only use the comments to respectfully comment on the games and the athletes who cover their heads while playing!
Noor Hussain Al-Malki, of Qatar, 17.
Shinoona Salah Al-Habsi, of Oman, 19.
Fatima Sulaiman Dahman, of Yemen, 19.
Soulmaz Abbaslazad, of Islamic Republic of Iran, 28, in Women's Single Sculls Finals, August 4.
On August 4, Women's 50m Rifle Qualifications:
Bahya Mansour Al Hamad, of Qatar, 20.
Elaheh Ahmadi, of Islamic Republic of Iran, 30.
Azza Alqasmi, of Bahrain, 27.
Maryam Arzouqi, of Kuwait, 29.
Mahlagha Jambozorg, of Islamic Republic of Iran, 20.
This is by no means a complete listing of all Olympians who cover, but just a short listing that I put together of athletes who are scheduled for the next couple of days. Please click the links to the athlete's names and you will be on the official London 2012 web pages, where you can research more athletes and sports that may have a representative of the head covering community participating.
Not to leave out any of our men who cover, I did notice a few Sikh gentlemen listed from India, who I believe will be allowed to participate in sports with their head coverings as well.
If you know of or find more, feel free to send a link here. I will allow links to post automatically for the next couple of days. Hopefully we won't get spammed or flamed during this time! Please only use the comments to respectfully comment on the games and the athletes who cover their heads while playing!
5 comments:
I have played regular volleyball as a teen and I remember most girl-teames wore short, short hotpants while guys wore baggy, long clothes and I found that sexualisationistic enough. That was one of the reasons i stopped playing volleyball long before I even started veiling. (In my mixed team many of us girls however wore more covering clothes, like the guys, the norms was not so strong for us as they where in all-girls teams.)
But in beachvolleyball, that became an olympic sport in 1996, there have actually been CLOTHINGRULES for women to wear bikinis with a MAXIMUM WIDTH of some CENTIMETERS up until just recently(!) Men, however, have always been free to play that sport in big T-shirts and long shorts aswell. I remember when I found out about this last summer, realising how the different clothingrules for men and women was ABSURDLY BIG in that sport. (I mean, it´s chocking enough that there ARE different clothingrules.) Many of the female players that found out about this where chocked and thought a changing of rules was neccessary. They where so used to wearing bikinis that they had never questioned it before, but they understood not all women could play with these rules. There are new rules now, especially rewritten for this years Olympics, see the link below:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-57405404/new-bikini-rules-for-olympic-beach-volleyball/
But still "The modified rule permits "shorts of a maximum length of (1.18 inches) above the knee". So this is still not letting in any practicing muslim girls (who belives the whole leg is "awra"/private to a woman) or even practicing jewish women (who belives "evrah"/private parts of the leg goes down to under the knee.) Practicing muslim men and men from different christian groups, who cover as much of the legs as jewish women, can however play, since men offcourse can wear shorts that goes down over the knee.
But it´s pretty impossible to take the sport seriously when knowing about these absurd sexy-looking-rules for women. So I don´t think it would be appropriate for beliving men to participate eather. I saw some slide show of beachvolleyball-playing women on msn in my country. It was full of catchy statements in a true hedonistic spirit, such as "We only watch it for the sport..Or do we?" with some zoomed in picture where half off the girls ass was hanging out. Personally i would not participate in a sport that discriminates against women as being forced or even expected to look like sex-objects to get to play. A sport that gets more viewers as porn than it does as a sport, as one can see on the many warnings that it will loose it´s popularity now with the new rules. It would feel to strange for me to play against girls in tiny bikinis, even if the rules was changed again and I would be free to cover up as much as I wanted. because the expectations and what they are used to wear would still be what dictated most womens choises of dress there. Even if I would win against some women playing in something similar to underwears it would feel to weird for me to be part of such a game. Kind of reminds me of some hot girls saying they felt strange, like they where wearing underwear, when wearing bikinis at the times we went swimming in high school. Some guys fastly reassured them that they did SO NOT see it that way. Getting used to wearing a bikini in public is actually just numbing your awareness of being almost naked in public.
Just read this..
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnclarke/2012/03/29/olympic-bikini-mandate-drops-but-will-viewership/
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/fash-track/womens-olympic-beach-volleyball-bikinis-mandate-305453
Excellent comments, Anonymous. It was quite obvious to anyone that the same girls who wore next to nothing in the warm daytime temp's could perform just as well in the cooler evening temperatures, wearing clothing that covered their rear ends as well as their bellies and ribs. It's hard to believe that the same Olympics "powers that be" - who triumph the fact that this is the first Olympics with women represented in every country competing ("oh, how equal we are!") - would have any sort of a uniform ruling that obviously places these women as sexual objects (and therefore not only unequal but demeaning) in order to increase ratings. Stating that it would lower viewership is merely an observation that many are only viewing the girls' near nudity, and not the sport. And besides, as Seinfeld the comedian observed concerning women's wrestling, they might... er... kiss each other. Your observation that women's beach volleyball gets more viewers as porn than it does as a sport is well said.
For a better article on this: http://opinionateit.blogspot.ca/2012/07/olympic-hijabis-taking-hijabed-athletes.html
Nice post! its really looking awesome to wear best quality headwear when playing games!
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