Background: After the 1979 revolution, women’s sport was completely neglected for almost one decade. An ideal Iranian woman was portrayed as a supporting mother, wife, or sister of war veterans. It was just after the end of Iran-Iraq war when women’s sport attracted some attention, particularly as a space where an image of an active but modest women could be portrayed as a role model for and representative of women in Islamic Iran. Faezeh Rafsenjani, daughter of Akbar Rafsenjani, then the president of Iran, founded the Women’s Islamic Games- a multi-sport competition event in which women athletes from Islamic countries (later non-Islamic countries were added) could participate. As no men or cameras were allowed to enter the competition area,
…show more content…
Since then most flag holders of Iranian team in Olympics games have been women athletes. Also, the participation of women in the Asian Games increased sports that allowed women athletes to wear the Islamic dress-code.
International sport events became more important for policy makers as a platform to portray the image of ideal strong active modest women to the world. Azizi and Kamal, in an "Iranian women, sport and the hijab issue" argue that the participation of Muslim women in sport is to challenge the portrayal of perceived Muslim women, as being passive and docile. He adds that the participation of Muslim women in sport is subject to religious belief in which the meaning of being feminine is not shaped around the exposure of the beautiful body …show more content…
Haifa Jawad emphasizes that Muslim women in sport challenge Islamic patriarchal authority (2009). Amina Wadud mentions that Islamic feminists have provided helpful interpretations of Islam to Muslim women to be able to re-enter a more public life, pursuing equity in an Islamic framework (2013). I will examine the question of distinguishing between religious and cultural barriers in women’s sport in sources including Sfeir, 1985; Daiman, 1994; Al-Ansari, 1999; and Benn, t. Pfister, G. and Jawad H. 2011. One important question in this regard is how women’s basic rights are compatible with limitations that Islamic dress code requires Iranian women to meet. Scholars such as Azizi and Kamal (2014) make a binary of Western vs Muslim women in sport claiming that “in modern sport where the attire of women sport persons being subjected to market demand and manipulation, women participation in sport, especially from some Muslim countries seems to be attacking the norm in a male dominated and Western sporting authority. Muslim women express their femininity in a different way, in fact in a way that is horror to some Western perspective” (492). Here, cultural relativism is a relevant topic. During the last three years Iran, after Iranian women’s objections and protests and international campaigns for equality in sport, has claimed that
Since then most flag holders of Iranian team in Olympics games have been women athletes. Also, the participation of women in the Asian Games increased sports that allowed women athletes to wear the Islamic dress-code.
International sport events became more important for policy makers as a platform to portray the image of ideal strong active modest women to the world. Azizi and Kamal, in an "Iranian women, sport and the hijab issue" argue that the participation of Muslim women in sport is to challenge the portrayal of perceived Muslim women, as being passive and docile. He adds that the participation of Muslim women in sport is subject to religious belief in which the meaning of being feminine is not shaped around the exposure of the beautiful body …show more content…
Haifa Jawad emphasizes that Muslim women in sport challenge Islamic patriarchal authority (2009). Amina Wadud mentions that Islamic feminists have provided helpful interpretations of Islam to Muslim women to be able to re-enter a more public life, pursuing equity in an Islamic framework (2013). I will examine the question of distinguishing between religious and cultural barriers in women’s sport in sources including Sfeir, 1985; Daiman, 1994; Al-Ansari, 1999; and Benn, t. Pfister, G. and Jawad H. 2011. One important question in this regard is how women’s basic rights are compatible with limitations that Islamic dress code requires Iranian women to meet. Scholars such as Azizi and Kamal (2014) make a binary of Western vs Muslim women in sport claiming that “in modern sport where the attire of women sport persons being subjected to market demand and manipulation, women participation in sport, especially from some Muslim countries seems to be attacking the norm in a male dominated and Western sporting authority. Muslim women express their femininity in a different way, in fact in a way that is horror to some Western perspective” (492). Here, cultural relativism is a relevant topic. During the last three years Iran, after Iranian women’s objections and protests and international campaigns for equality in sport, has claimed that