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Arab Girl Breaks Barriers And Makes History At London Olympics

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Although Khadija Mohammed is only 17, she’s already shouldering some hefty responsibility — for starters, she’s heading off to the Olympics this year to compete in the 75-kilogram category, requiring her to lift 165 pounds. She also happens to be the first United Arabic Emirates woman to qualify outright for Olympics, placing her in a historical moment that undoubtedly will blaze a trail for Gulf women and women weightlifters everywhere.

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Women’s weightlifting in the UAE faces many of the same stigmas that it does in the United States — women who lift are often confused with body builders, a perception that can translate into a distaste for athletic women’s bodies. In a world in which women aren’t “supposed” to be as athletic and fit as men, women’s bodies that aren’t soft and curvy are seen as undesirable — by both mainstream culture and corporate sponsors. The fear that women weightlifters will become “undesirable” to potential suitors due to a masculine physic is one of the many barriers that prevent the growth of women’s weightlifting as a sport.

However, in true Olympian spirit, the rampant stigma against female weightlifters didn’t stop Mohammed from pursuing her dream — she joined the gym of former Egyptian Olympic lifter Najwan El Zawawi and now, after an impressive showing at the Asian Weightlifting Championships in South Korea, Mohammed will proudly stand before a global audience and represent both the United Arabic Emirates and women athletes everywhere.

Although she doesn’t expect to place in her category, especially considering how young she is and the heavy competition she’ll face, Mohammed knows that her presence at the Olympics is more than about  medals: “It will be a shocking thing,” she says, “for people to know that a girl (from the UAE) is participating.” She adds, “In the UAE, [weightlifting] is a girls’ sport as the girls qualified, not the boys.” Indeed, her supporters are trying to ensure that weightlifting is a sport for all girls — in order to accommodate her participation, the International Weightlifting Federation has altered its policy to allow contestants to wear a one-piece uniform covering most of the body in addition to the hijab the current policy already allows.

Mohammed may not bring home the gold for her country, but she will almost certainly shift cultural perceptions of women athletes. Though women’s weightlifting is in its infancy in the Gulf countries, Mohammed and her fellow female teammates hope that by participating in the Olympics, they’ll show their nation and the world that “women can do more.” As her friend and fellow lifter Alanood Abdulla Faraj says: “I’ve been told this is not for women and this will ruin my body and that we should just go shopping…there are women who are ministers, presidents of countries who are women. So the status of women will only go higher by playing this sport.”

We wish Mohammed the best of luck at the 2012 London Olympics — she is an absolute paragon of bravery and resilience, no matter how she ultimately performs this summer.

(via Jezebel and The Associated Press.)

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