Egyptian tennis professional Mayar Sharif does not pretend to be an expert on Saudi Arabia’s record in the field of women’s rights, other than to say: “I know that it is not the best.”
What Sharif, who made her Wimbledon debut this week, said is that she believes positive steps can be taken in this field if tennis follows the path of golf and other sports by doing business with or competing in the kingdom.
Sharif says in an interview with the agency Associated Press “Women’s rights in the Arab world need to improve… If you start changing this from the outside by introducing tournaments, and start creating a different atmosphere, that will be beneficial.”
“If you put women in skirts on the court, maybe a young girl from Saudi Arabia will see the matches there and say I want to play tennis… I want to be like these girls… This is a way of changing the mentality,” Sharif added.
Sharif is not alone in hoping for this kind of effect in Saudi Arabia, a country where human rights groups say women still face discrimination in most aspects of family life and where homosexuality is a major taboo, as it is throughout much of the Middle East.
“I don’t think you’ll really change unless you participate,” says famous tennis player and human rights advocate Billie Jean King.
And she added in statements last week, “Otherwise, this means that the step is just an attempt at sports washing, as Saudi Arabia and other countries such as Russia, China and Qatar take advantage of sports to improve their public image,” noting that “it is clear that tennis will be next.”
The Associated Press reports that the ATP is working on a deal to hold the Finals of the Next Generation Championship, an annual exhibition tournament for young tennis players, in Saudi Arabia.
She adds that WTA President Steve Simon’s visit to the kingdom with some players last February and his admission last week that his organization “will continue to hold talks” with the Saudis, makes it seem as if the women’s tournament will be held there as well.
“Money speaks in our world now,” says Russian player Daria Kasatkina, who reached the semi-finals of the 2022 French Open and came out last year as gay.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has embarked on wide-ranging social reforms, including giving women the right to drive and relaxing laws regarding male guardianship over women.
However, men and women are still required to dress modestly, but restrictions have been significantly relaxed and the powers of the police to promote virtue and prevent vice have been sidelined.
Gender segregation in public spaces has also been eased, with men and women able to attend film screenings and concerts, something unimaginable just a few years ago.
However, the kingdom still punishes same-sex relations with death or flogging, although prosecutions are rare, and authorities ban all forms of LGBTQI+ advocacy, even confiscating rainbow-colored toys and clothing.
Thanks at least in part to social media, women in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world are aware of the gap between their lives and those of women in less restrictive societies.
But Saudi women seeking some freedom for themselves have been punished, according to the Associated Press.
“Even as the authorities enacted reforms, they cracked down heavily on any form of political dissent, arresting women’s rights activists and other critics and sentencing them to long prison terms as well as imposing travel bans on them, sometimes just for posting a few tweets.” .
World tennis champion Victoria Azarenka says, commenting on Saudi Arabia’s attempts to enter the world of tennis, that “the matter can be viewed from a negative and positive perspective … and I do not believe that things are black and white.”
And she adds, “We need financial assistance to improve the level of prizes.. But we must also look at the issue in terms of: How can we be useful? And where can we go to make a difference?”
2023-07-08 14:44:55
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