Muslim women face varying amounts of oppression from men depending on where they live. In some regions like Lebanon, Turkey, Morocco, Israel and the UAE, women are relatively as free as the men to drive, work — and yeah work out. While some women may dream of going to a post-workout Starbucks in Lululemon hot pink workout pants  – in Afghanistan women are fighting for the right to work out at all.

In a post-Taliban city of Kahandar, Afghanistan Muslim women are sneaking into a new gym to secretly work out. Though I am not sure how secret that may be now that the story was covered in the New York Times.

Some women say they faced depression and health problems and felt joining the  gym – founded by a women’s rights activist Maryam Durani (who survived two suicide bombings and death threats) was the only thing they could do for their well being.

Even Muslim women walking around outside in certain villages in the Bedouin society in Israel is not considered acceptable. So given the restrictions there aren’t a lot of creative ways for every Muslim woman to exercise. I have noticed a growing number of Muslim women walking in conservative workout gear in Jaffa, something I hadn’t seen let’s say 5 years ago. So times are changing, even in Afghanistan. And while women in America fought to wear pants in the 1930s, Afghani women are fighting for the treadmill. 

The gym was started last year in a basement, guarded by security, and away from prying eyes. 

While there is a health club for women in the city of Kabul, some areas like Kandahar are extremely conservative. 

In my city the Muslim women enjoy a day at the gym every other day of the week at the Jewish Arab Community Center, which is sensitive to Muslim modesty needs. That’s women on one day, and men on the other.  There is a beach in North Tel Aviv which operates for the same reasons one day men, one day women, but for Orthodox Jewish families who practice similar modesty laws by choice. 

I support any society that wants to be modest, but not the ones enforcing the rules that clearly dehumanise others. 

In Bedouin towns in Israel such as Rahat women are not allowed to have free movement including going to work, and walking around the village, so it really depends more on village and town customs, and how men from the families enforce their religious observance, more than a country-wide oppression. 

Over in Afghanistan social media posts are calling the gym ‘a house for whores, so women can make themselves look better for men’. Women who visit the new gym have been threatened outside and hit with stones and death threats should they return –– a barbaric response to a basic human need to feel fit.

We need a little more Rumi

Even though the Taliban have left the city the women face the same control by men exerted over them as though the terror group never left, they say.

Afghanistan wasn’t always so repressive towards women. Neither was Iran. Repressive and oppressive regimes have turned both countries into backwater states, with barely a hint of their former selves.

My husband’s great-grandfather was born in Balkh, previously Persia and now Afghanistan, the same town where Rumi, a Muslim Sufi came from. I consider Rumi to be one of the world’s biggest spiritual guides, teaching humility, love for nature, love for god. Years ago his town and region was a mystical and cultural magnet from which the West met the East in much more than trade of goods, but where spiritual ideas looking for the truth and god collided.

Sadly the god of the bullies has taken over and we need to help the women in these impoverished places rise up – one sit up at a time. And remember even progressive-looking women can be married to despots. Read our story about Bashar al Asad’s London-born wife Asma al Asad. And the fiasco with Vogue. 

Fuel progressive thinking, and read more stories from Afghanistan and Iran

How about the Girls of Skateistan? 

Or when we covered Surfing in Iran? 

Or the All-women Afghanistan Cycling Team?

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Bike riding is taboo for Afghan women, considered a marker of promiscuity and ranking on the cultural offenses index somewhere between driving and being spotted with an unrelated man. That belief eliminates a sustainable means of travel and undermines women’s mobility, creating another obstacle to accessing education. Watch a new generation of cyclists race away from the ban.

In 2006, Shannon Galpin founded Mountain2Mountain, a nonprofit that connects American mountain communities with their geographic cousins abroad. The organization focuses particularly on women and children in conflict zones. She made her first trip to Afghanistan in 2008.

Galpin claims to be the first woman to ride a mountain bike through the Afghan countryside.  Bending norms as a foreigner, she’s used her bike as an icebreaker with tribal elders in remote villages, and in bold fundraisers (she pedaled 140 miles across the Panjshir Valley, rough terrain with a 4,000 vertical foot drop).

Last year, on her 11^th visit, Galpin met another cyclist who told her that an Afghan women’s national cycling team had been created.  They practiced before dawn with the men’s cycling team coach, helmets atop headscarves and limbs fully covered.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Galpin, a former Pilates instructor from Colorado, told The New York Times. “I’d been in the most liberal areas of the country, and I’d never seen a little girl on a bike, let alone a grown woman.”

Inspired, she spent the past winter fundraising and returned to Afghanistan last month to distribute 40 duffel bags stuffed with tools, bike seats and jerseys. Liv/Giant, a brand focused on female cyclists, joined the effort, supplying new bicycles and another company, Giro, donated helmets and shoes.

Afghanistan has 45 licensed female cyclists, according to the International Cycling Union (ICU).  Some participated in the Asian Cycling Championships last March, although four of them failed to finish. The riders hope to compete in the 2016 Olympics, but need to start earning points in the ICU nations ranking through bigger events like the Continental Championships and Women’s Road World Cup.

The women are also eligible for scholarships through the Olympic Solidarity Commission, which helps countries in need to develop their sports programs.

Galpin said, “They’re no different than women in Afghanistan who risk their lives to attend school or run for Parliament.”  (Or who use paint and graffiti to express themselves.) “They know the only way to break the taboo is for other women to see them riding bikes.”

This goes beyond sending cyclists to the Olympics.  It’s a way to shatter a standard that curtails women’s mobility.  Bikes are affordable, sustainable, healthy.  They allow riders to travel independently, without guardians and absent a mass transit structure.

Galpin is creating a documentary about the team titled “Afghan Cycles“, and the cyclists remain eager to speak publicly about their team, despite having received death threats.

The women need money to train, to travel to races, and to hire coaches. Sound like a project you’d like to support? Donations can be made at the Mountain2Mountain website.

Said Galpin, “Once they’ve all finished a race, they can start trying to win one.’”

Images from Afghan Cycles Facebook page

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Hamas in Gaza does not want pretty women running in the streets. UN cancels the marathon that had almost 400 women registered for participation.

While Israel gears up for its 42k marathon next week, the United Nations cancels Gaza marathon after Hamas rulers ban women from participating. The ban is the latest attempt by the Palestinian political party to impose its ideology inside the crowded Gaza Strip. Gaza women athletes accepted the news, noting that even before the ban societal pressures made training problematic.

Islam has no specific ban on women running.  Green Prophet has reported extensively on difficulties faced by Islamic women athletes during last summer’s London Olympics.  The majority of Gaza women wear hijab and many also wear abaya.  Unlike Formula One racers “The Speed Sisters“, many Palestinian sportswomen tend to limit their exercise to indoor gyms. So why the ban?

According to National Public Radio, Gaza’s Cabinet secretary, Abdul-Salam Siam, said women running in public violated Palestinian custom,”We don’t want any woman running uncovered.” Siam said only adult women were banned: girls could participate in the April 10 race.  He wouldn’t say why Hamas didn’t ban women from the previous two races.

Over 800 runners had registered, including 266 Palestinian and 119 foreign women, according to UN spokesman Sami Mshasha.  Organizers have always been careful to encourage modest dress: runners typically wore full-length running pants and long-sleeved shirts.

Gaza rights groups urged the UN to hold the marathon, arguing that Hamas has no right to discriminate against women.

Runner Nader Masri, who represented Palestine in the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the 5k race, said Gaza’s conservative culture makes it impossible for women to run in public. “Who would allow his daughter or sister to run in the street?” Masri asked. “When a girl of 16 or 17 is running in the street, that’s not acceptable.”

Woroud Sawalha represented Palestine in the 2012 London Olympics in the 800 meters. “It means a lot for me that I am female and representing Palestine,” she told CNN’s Aiming For Gold.

The UN does not recognize a Palestinian state but the International Olympic Committee has permitted athletes to compete under a Palestinian flag since 1996.

“My dad told me that I’m a pretty woman now, and not a girl anymore, so I can’t run in the streets. It will be a headache for him because people will gossip,” said Noura Shukri, a high school student who ran in the 2011 and 2012 marathons.

Critics suggest that the cancellation shows a shift in political power.  “The decision highlights the influence of the hard-liners in the Gaza government,”  Gaza political analyst Mukheimar Abu Sada told NPR.

“We did not tell UN Relief and Works Agency to cancel the marathon and we haven’t prevented it, but we laid down some conditions: We don’t want women and men mixing in the same place,” Abdessalam Siyyam, cabinet secretary of the Hamas government, told AFP.

The race would have been the third annual  UNRWA Gaza Marathon, raising funds for the agency’s summer program for Gazan children.  The news comes days before the Tel Aviv Gillette Marathon, Israel’s largest sporting event held on held on March 15, attracting over 35,000 runners.

Update: Due to a heat wave the Tel Aviv marathon will be postponed by a week.

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The Speed Sisters, the Palestinian women’s motor racing team, are a Middle Eastern first: Independent and passionate, they’ve charted their own roadmap through a male-dominated sport, steering around family expectations, social pressures, community politics and an active military occupation.

Zoom out and the nuances deepen – women in nearby Saudi aren’t permitted to drive. Racing is a sport and a brilliant form of protest allowing drivers to demonstrate traits not typically valued in Arab females.  It illustrates what may be possible in a rapidly changing Middle East. The team has a changing roster of Muslims and Christians, headed by Maysoon Jayyusi, whose love of fast cars emerged during frustrating hours at Israeli checkpoints.

Veteran Speed Sister Mona Ennab told The National, “When I drive, I understand freedom. We’re used to being stopped at checkpoints, but on days we have races, we fly through. One day, a woman from Palestine will win an international Formula race.”

Mona was the first women spotted by Khaled Khadoura, founder of the Palestinian Motorsport & Motorcycle Federation, while she raced boys in Ramallah’s streets. She started driving at a kiddie karting arcade in Amman’s Mecca Mall.  “It’s a slow process,” she says. “The men made fun of us at the beginning, but we won their respect and now our fellow male racers are our biggest supporters.”

Mexican-born Betty Sa’adeh started racing in 2010;  by 2011 she was the Palestinian women’s champion. She says, “I want to show the world that Palestinian women are more than their media image.”

Team captain Suna Aweida was one of the first women to race in Palestine, placing in the top 10.  Retired from racing in 2010, the inspirational mentor acknowledges that her family wasn’t happy for her to participate.

Diaspora-baby Noor Daoud was born in Texas, raised in Jerusalem, and schooled in Switzerland.  An Olympic swimmer and player on the Palestinian national soccer team, she’s now focused on racing Formula 3.  The first Palestinian to participate in (and win) an Israeli race, she loves to “drift” her car and ride dirt bikes.

Last December, Noor nailed first place for women in Israel’s first legal car race, a two-day event in Eilat that featured Formula cars in a traditional grand prix format. The win brings her one step closer to her dreams of racing internationally. “Some people may judge Noor for racing with Israelis.  If I were in her place, I would do the same,” says Speed Sister Mona. “She has a Jerusalem ID which allows her to participate, and she’s made us proud.”

The newest Sister, Sahar, is the first member to wear the hijab. Some Muslim clerics have condemned motor sport for being frivolous and haram. But as we’ve seen during the 2012 Olympics, Islamic law is subject to varied interpretation.

Ranked in the top 10 of 67 racers, the team stands poised to break onto the international arena, presenting an inspiring image of Palestine and of Arab women.  But the Speed Sisters are keenly conscious of the limited professional options: sponsorship money is scarce (the British Consulate in Jerusalem funds their race car).

In many ways, the women represent Palestine’s diversity:  fragmented West Bank cities divided by checkpoints, settlements and class differences. They are unified by intense love of racing, a Palestinian identity and an appetite to compete in a male-dominated sport.

Green Prophet’s reported on solid gold Mercedes, but we don’t support car racing.  We’re gobsmacked by the Middle East pasttime of dangerous drifting and no fans of  frivolous fossil fuel use. So why cover this story?

There’s a Jordanian saying that translates, “Sometimes you slaughter a camel to feed a fox”.  Maybe burning a few barrels of fuel is small change compared to the large positive change these emergent celebrities and role models will incite. Debaters, start your engines.

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There may have been a public battle to allow Saudi women to drive but an award-winning film explores the sensitive issue of women’s rights through a young girl and her green bike

The battle for Saudi women to drive (and also take part in the Olympics) may have hit the headlines in 2012 but there are a million little battles fought by Saudi women everyday. The new and award-winning film ‘Wadjda’ by Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour charts a young girl’s wish to ride a green bicycle and race with a boy in her neighbourhood. Al Mansour says the film aims to put a human face on the issues in Saudi Arabia and charts the struggles of ordinary people who have to manoeuvre through the conservative society of the Kingdom.

“The Saudi culture can be especially brutal and unforgiving to people who fall out of step with the society, so there is a real fear of being labeled an outcast,” explains Al Mansour, who is the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia. “So in some ways, the story is part of my life and the things I encountered in my life. A lot of my experiences, along with those of my friends and family, are reflected in the film in some way – they didn’t just come from a concept in my mind.”

‘Wadjda’, which won the best Arabic feature film at the Dubai Film Festival, is the first full-length feature ever filmed entirely inside the Kingdom. The film lead, Wadjda, is desperate to buy a green bike at her local shop but her mother won’t allow it, fearing repercussion from a society that sees bicycles as dangerous to a girl’s virtue. So Wadjda decides to try and raise the money herself.

“I come from a small town in Saudi Arabia where there are many girls like Wadjda who have big dreams, strong characters and so much potential. These girls can, and will, reshape and redefine our nation,” insists Al Mansour. The filmmaker also explained that it was important for her to work with all-Saudi cast of actors and to tell the story with local, authentic voices. “I hope the film offers a unique insight into my own country and speaks of universal themes of hope and perseverance that people of all cultures can relate to,” she added.

For more on “greening” Saudi Arabia see:
Saudi Spring for Women Drivers Begins Now!
Are Saudi’s Female Olympians Harlots or Heroes?
Saudi Women Give Right to Vote (& Save Planet)

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Prince Ali of Jordan believes that Muslim women shouldn’t be disqualified from world-class sports because they wear the hijab, the traditional Islamic head covering. This youngest vice-president of the world football’s governing body Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is a vocal supporter in the campaign against the hijab ban. In 2007, FIFA, banned players from wearing hijab, citing safety concerns.

“This is not an issue of religious symbolism. It’s simply a case of cultural modesty. And I’m tackling this because it is a big issue for many, many women all across the world. It’s not an issue which will go away,” said the prince in a statement to Yahoo Sports recently. The Prince’s pitch to grant everyone equal rights to play soccer has United Nations backing. Sports are good for heart health and we’d be thrilled to see more religious Muslim keeping fit through Sport. The ban is an obstacle to Muslim women athletes. 

Last year, Iran’s national women’s team withdrew from the West Asia Olympic qualifiers because of the uniform restriction. Three Jordanian players were also forced to drop out. The Jordanian’s disqualification incited Rahaf Owais, a Jordanian Football Association employee, to start a petition on Change.org: over 15,000 people signed it.  Owais’s campaign grabbed international attention: the story was picked up on CNN and carried in leading US newspapers. Her cause attracted Prince Ali’s support, and was a pivotal contributor to FIFA’s decision.

Last March, in a separate action, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) defied FIFA’s ruling: permitting players to wear their headscarves. IFAB is comprised of a single representative from each of the English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish football associations, plus four reps from FIFA. IFAB actions must be approved by 75% of the vote and FIFA approval is necessary for every decision.

IFAB meets to ratify its decision to lift the ban in July.

“We held a meeting in FIFA with designers of a safe headscarf as well as independent technical testing institutes in order to discuss the new designs,” said Ali.  A sports hijab, equipped with Velcro fasteners, has been designed for competitive use.

“Safety is important, but to date, there have been no reported injuries due the headscarf on the pitch,” said the prince. “We have a responsibility to ensure that all women who wear a headscarf are able to participate in the game they love. Football is a sport for all.”

Prince Ali, who is half-brother of King Abdullah II, was recently recognized for his contribution to Muslim women’s sport at the inaugural Muslim Women’s Sport Foundation Ambassador Awards. The event celebrated female role models in the Muslim community as well as non-Islamic figures who have worked to increase access to sport for Muslims worldwide.

Football Association chairman, David Bernstein, chaired the event; he told insideworldfootball that he was keen to engage with Muslim communities and wanted to see more Muslim Premier League stars as role models.

“When you play football there is something you have in common and it can cross boundaries. I think sport is a wonderful way, football in particular, to bring communities together.”

Image of a pretty muslim woman athlete by Shutterstock

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