Muslim sportswomen are too often read and represented as the oppressed “other” needing saving from their backward culture/society. However, my research on the digital lives of Muslim sportswomen reveals the multiple and nuanced ways they are taking matters of representation into their own hands, and in so doing, are challenging dominant portrayals of Muslim women in the mass media. Mainstream media coverage of Muslim women tends to focus on the hijabi athlete, while other Muslim sportswomen are often overlooked. The overrepresentation of the “oppressed” hijabi athlete obscures the multiple ways that Muslim women are participating in sport, as well as the cultural differences and diversity within this group. For example, the image below of a beach volleyball match between teams from Egypt and Germany, dubbed by some as the “clash of civilizations,” was circulated widely on social media. Many of the conversations and images centred around the hijabi athlete and rarely mentioned her Egyptian teammate who did not wear the hijab.
women in sport
Beth Mowins became only the second woman to serve as a play-by-play announcer for a regular season National Football League (NFL) game when she called the Monday Night Football (MNF) broadcast of the Chargers-Broncos game on Sept. 11, 2017. Mowins has called games for ESPN since 1994, and her repertoire spans college football, college basketball, and, for 23 years, the softball world series. As Chris Finn noted on boston.com, “[Mowins] confirmed again to little surprise that she’s a steady and often superb broadcasting pro, no pronoun qualifier necessary.” However, that Finn even needed the pronoun reference indicates why Mowins is significant for the proverbial hill she climbed to reach the MNF booth despite having the credentials to merit the opportunity years before.
In his book, Diversity and Inclusion in Sport Organizations, Cunningham highlights that the sport industry has historically been a male oriented space where men have continuously held positions of power, subjugating women’s ability to participate and take positions of authority. Despite this historical power imbalance, research also shows that better business decisions are made when a diverse group of both men and women are a part of the process. Further, having more women represented in leadership roles can ultimately help an organization progress and evolve in a successful direction.
Beth Mowins became only the second woman to serve as a play-by-play announcer for a regular season National Football League (NFL) game when she called the Monday Night Football (MNF) broadcast of the Chargers-Broncos game on Sept. 11, 2017. Mowins has called games for ESPN since 1994, and her repertoire spans college football, college basketball, and, for 23 years, the softball world series. As Chris Finn noted on boston.com, “[Mowins] confirmed again to little surprise that she’s a steady and often superb broadcasting pro, no pronoun qualifier necessary.” However, that Finn even needed the pronoun reference indicates why Mowins is significant for the proverbial hill she climbed to reach the MNF booth despite having the credentials to merit the opportunity years before.
In his book, Diversity and Inclusion in Sport Organizations, Cunningham highlights that the sport industry has historically been a male oriented space where men have continuously held positions of power, subjugating women’s ability to participate and take positions of authority. Despite this historical power imbalance, research also shows that better business decisions are made when a diverse group of both men and women are a part of the process. Further, having more women represented in leadership roles can ultimately help an organization progress and evolve in a successful direction.