Equality / Martial Arts

TAEKWONDO IN A HIJAB: Muscular Feminism in Iran

Pattrice Jones reports on how women and girls in Iran are expressing themselves through the medium of sport
Featuring: Hijabs. Muhammad Ali. Political Activism. The Ayatollahs.

ara Khoshjamal-Fekri circles her opponent warily, watching for the opportunity to slip in a subversive strike. For this Taekwondo champion, success depends on the ability to seize every opportunity to catch her adversary unaware and unprepared. Photos of this teen sensation adorn the walls of gyms at which girls kick, punch and spin, learning the art and science of hand-to-hand combat. Laleh Seddigh rounds the race course, urged to drive faster and faster by hordes of screaming female fans clinging to the chain-link fence encircling the track. Adept at both circuit and motor-rally racing, stylish and suave 31-year-old Seddigh competes and usually wins in the top racing division known as the free class. All racers and fighters must be focused and vigilant to avoid dangerous incidents. As Iranian women competing with repressive regulations as well as their athletic adversaries, these two champions must be doubly so. At the Beijing Olympics, Sara Khoshjamal-Fekri tangled with opponents while hampered by a headscarf. Meanwhile, champion driver Laleh Seddigh sat out a racing season, banned from the sport for a year for a technical infraction often overlooked when perpetrated by male drivers.

The experiences of these elite Iranian athletes mirror those of everyday Iranian women fighting for rights that have been won and lost before. In every corner of the country, campaigners with the Change for Equality movement relentlessly exploit chance opportunities, slipping petitions and pamphlets to fellow citizens in public parks and shared taxis. Others languish in prison, restlessly awaiting the chance to re-enter the struggle. Athletes make music with their bodies, matching wit with muscle to win symbolic conflicts. Womens bodies are the battlegrounds on which Iranian cultural and political conflicts often have been fought. Is it any wonder, then, that many Iranian girls and women are sport fanatics, defying authorities to cheer their favorite athletes and playing all sorts of sports themselves despite the discomfort of doing so within the limitations imposed by the fundamentalist regime? As Iranian feminist Mahsa Shekarloo has noted, contemporary Western media tend to portray Iranian women as either passive victims of tradition or plucky heroines defying tradition in order to embrace Western values. Yet neither view really takes account of the homegrown tradition of muscular feminism in a region still ruled with an iron fist by the Ayatollahs.

Throughout Iranian history women have fought fiercely and often literally and physically for their rights as women, workers and citizens. Women were frequently instrumental in preserving 19th-century Persia from colonisation by Britain or Russia. In one particularly striking episode, 300 pistol-packing women threatened to kill themselves and their sons and husbands if the Persian Parliament conceded to Russian demands. In the 20th century, radical Iranian women formed secret societies, organised women workers and founded progressive groups such as the Organisation of Revolutionary Women. More moderate women argued for womens rights as a means of modernisation and development, a way of thinking that was in fact embraced by the Pahlavi dynasty of Shahs. Promulgated from the top by hated despots with ties to foreign powers, reforms such as unveiling met mixed reactions from both women and men. Some women felt the demand to be stylish participants in consumer culture to be a new and foreign form of oppression. While some men welcomed the newfound physical freedom of their sisters and mothers, others sorely resented what they perceived as their loss of control over their daughters and wives.

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Equality / Martial Arts

In 1981, in an eerie echo of Soweto, 50 schoolgirls were shot for demonstrating for their rights. Between 1979 and 1983, more than 20,000 girls and women were executed for allegedly anti-Islamic or counterrevolutionary activity.
In 1979, radical opponents of the Pahlavi dynasty joined forces with religious fundamentalists to topple the Shah.Within days, the new leadership divested women of rights only recently won after decades of struggle. Outraged by this reversal of fortune, thousands of the same women who had fought the Shah and danced in the streets to celebrate his flight were back out on the streets marching for the restoration of their own rights. 15,000 women seized the Department of Justice in Tehran. Others joined rural guerilla bands opposed to the new regime. In 1981, two armed women attacked Ayatollah Khomemeinis spokesman. The government fought back, empowering men to stone womens demonstrations and publicly execute several prominent women. In 1981, in an eerie echo of Soweto, 50 schoolgirls were shot for demonstrating for their rights. Between 1979 and 1983, more than 20,000 girls and women were executed for allegedly anti-Islamic or counterrevolutionary activity. In the face of such violent repression, women were forced to retreat and regroup. Sport has been one arena of retrenchment. Ironically, restrictions on female participation in sport have created a space for girls and women to literally empower themselves apart from male scrutiny. In public, women must be covered except for their hands and faces and the shapes of their bodies must not be detectable beneath their clothing. That means that virtually all sport practice and competition takes place in strictly sex-segregated facilities. The film Offside shows the frustration this causes female sport spectators, who make up more than 60 percent of soccer fans. Hidden from view are the opportunities for collective consciousness raising and empowerment in female-only sport facilities. Behind the closed doors of such facilities, many Iranian girls are learning to fight. Martial arts are very popular, with more than 120,000 girls practicing Taekwondo alone. Best described as the art of punching and kicking, Taekwondo arose in Korea during its occupation by Japan. From 1910 through 1945, Koreans suffered torture, vivisection, mass executions and forced prostitution at the hand

of the Japanese Imperial Army. Denied all political and cultural rights, many Koreans maintained their strength and identity through clandestine practice of martial arts, including the style of combat now known as Taekwondo. Is it any wonder that such a subversive and empowering sport has been embraced by so many Iranian girls and women? Posters featuring Sara Khoshjamal-Fekri decorate the walls of the Iranian Taekwondo Federation. Heading for the Beijing Olympics, Khoshjamal-Fekri told reporters she hoped her appearance in the Olympics would encourage other women in Iran and around the world to seek a greater social role. Can sport which is, in the end, nothing more than organised play serve such a seriously subversive purpose? Exercise does lead to improved physical and mental health. And, indeed, Tehran sportswriter Leili Khorsand told the Hamburger Abendblatt that sport has become a kind of selfhelp for girls and women in Iran. But can elite achievements such as those of Sara Khoshjamal-Fekri and Laleh Seddigh contribute to the collective cause of womens liberation? According to sports journalist Dave

Even though collecting petition signatures is a legal activity, authorities routinely menace the Campaign for Equality, locking up its organisers and shutting down its website on the pretext that the campaign threatens state security. Campaigners have been sentenced to whippings, exile and imprisonment.

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Equality / Martial Arts

Zirin, author of several books on the political history of sport, breakout athletic performances can inspire collective political activism. I am the greatest! shouted African American boxer Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) upon capturing Olympic gold in 1960. We are the greatest! proclaimed the posters of the first African American organisation to use the black panther as a symbol of political power in 1965. Like Jackie Robinson before him the first black baseball player in American major league baseball Ali not only symbolised but galvanised the struggle for civil rights.

Screaming female fans cling to the fences, angering race authorities.

Might Sara Khoshjamal, Laleh Seddigh and other female athletes similarly vitalise the fight for Iranian womens rights? According to Zirin, that depends on the movement and on the mindset of the athlete: When Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes match, it took place in the context of a womens movement. The womens movement in Iran is alive and thriving, despite continued state repression. The Change for Equality movement aims to collect one million Iranian signatures on a petition condemning discriminatory laws. This is a true grassroots movement in which campaigners in every corner of the country educate women and men in the course of asking for their signatures. These one-on-one conversations, rather than the petition itself, are the heart of a truly local process of internal community change. Its working. Lively rallies in favour of womens rights demonstrate that many women feel more empowered to demand their rights. The regime betrays its fear of this feminist groundswell by violently breaking up peaceful demonstrations and heavy-handedly persecuting a petition drive. According to Amnesty International, Campaign for Equality members have lost their jobs and received threatening telephone calls. Even though collecting petition signatures is a legal activity, authorities routinely menace the campaign, locking up its organisers and shutting down its website on the pretext that the campaign threatens state security. Campaigners have been sentenced to whippings, exile and imprisonment. Context is everything, says Zirin, but also the individual consciousness of the athlete themselves. Do they use their platform to say something or are they content making a statement at the level of the symbolic? In the context of state suppression of womens voices, teenage Taekwondo champion

Sara Khoshjamal-Fekris pre-Olympic comments to reporters ring courageously. Im trying to prove that Iranian women have a lot to say. Iranian-born Anousheh Ansari, whose adventures as the first Muslim woman in space were widely watched and cheered by girls and women within Iran in 2006, believes that individual achievement can contribute to collective struggles for change. I think it provides hope, she says. As the situation looks dire and the prospect of change seems lost, the only thing that keeps the women of Iran moving forward stronger than ever is hope hope for a better future and hope for change. And, indeed, just as Iranian women flocked to a Tehran observatory to monitor Ansaris orbit around the earth, girls and women throng the track to watch Laleh Seddigh race. When Seddigh won third place in her first race, the screaming female fans clinging to the fences angered race authorities. One recalls fans of Jackie Robinson spilling out of segregated seating to the chagrin of Southern racists. In such moments, perhaps, the feeling of freedom is born. More than any other female athlete in Iran, Laleh Seddigh has tested the limits of official tolerance. Like Robinson taunting opponents with his base-stealing abilities, Seddigh has shown brash bravado in victory. Somewhat protected by the wealth and influence of her family, she tends to speak forthrightly. I broke a taboo, she told Der Spiegel, speaking of her victory over male competitors, Im proud of it. Why should Iranian women be weak? Like many Islamic feminists, Seddigh argues that fundamentalist proscriptions of womens freedom thwart the true intentions of the Prophet Mohammed. Seddigh is the focus of a BBC documentary entitled Girl Racer. Another female motor-rally driver, Sonbol Fatima, is profiled in Niko Apel's documentary Sonbal. Fatima Geza Abdollahyans forthcoming feature documentary, Champions In A Chador, profiles female Muslim athletes, asking whether sport can be an act of emancipation. Female athletes in Iran must cover up their muscles, whether or not they would personally choose to do so for religious reasons. But the hijab cant cover their true strength or the naked aggression of the rulers who repress them. Revving up to petition for rights that were won in 1975 only to be lost in 1979, womens rights campaigners must sometimes feel like Laleh Seddigh, racing past the finish line only to begin again. As astronaut Anousheh Ansari says: This and other efforts are small but important steps but require much more forceful strategies in order to implement real sustainable change in the society. Its lucky, then, that so many Iranian girls now know Taekwondo. WPattrice Jones ILina Ekstrand

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Habits of a Soho House Member
MEMBER: Louise Plank LOCATION: High Road House, Chiswick PERSONAL DETAILS: Director of Plank PR, an agency specialising in publicity for television programmes, presenters and production companies. Originally from a potato farm in Wiltshire called Planks Potatoes. I now live and work in Chiswick. MEMBER HISTORY: I joined High Road House as a founder member when it opened a couple of years ago and became a committee member shortly after. CV: Studied journalism and PR at Cardiff Journalism School before moving to a PR consultancy in Bristol specialising in the promotion of yoghurt pots and ice-cream tubs. Not quite the progression I had envisaged and thankfully Channel 5, as it was then, saved me. I stayed there for eight years before leaving Five in September 2005 to set up Plank PR. I now work with presenters and production companies across all broadcasters. CLUB CONNECTIONS: I had been an envious visitor of Soho House for years and met Nick Jones while working with Kirsty Young at Five. High Road House is a brilliant solution for people in Chiswick a delightful mix of the perfect place to get a late-night refreshment and somewhere thats family-friendly at the weekend. HOUSE FAVOURITES: Long Sunday lunches in the private room at High Road House the kind of day where you move over to the sofas for coffee, order that nal bottle of wine until closing. FAVOURITE NIGHT IN THE HOUSE: Ive got to have two choices here: Sneaky Peak for an adultonly night and Christmas Carols at the House for my family. You cant beat that end-of-term feeling and my stepson Ale loves the carol competition. SOHO HOUSE FOR THE FUTURE: The House Festival as a permanent xture every year; its been perfect the last two years. A rooftop terrace for the summer at High Road House would be nice too. MEDIA CURRENTLY ENJOYING: I read all the daily and Sunday papers and most of the weekly and monthly mags too. 6 Music is a relatively new discovery you cant beat a bit of George Lamb followed by Nemone. As for TV, at the moment Im a sucker for the pure escapism of Lipstick Jungle and the BBC iPlayer has revolutionised my life.

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