Saudi Arabia’s 11th-hour decision to allow women to compete at this summer’s Olympic Games in London is an important step toward ending that country’s reprehensible gender apartheid. But for the change to have real meaning, the International Olympic Committee will need to keep up the pressure on the Gulf Kingdom.
Imagine a nation which banned all Hindus from participating in the Games - or all men. Would it be permitted to get away with so clear a form of discrimination, which violates the Olympic Charter? Surely not.
Saudi Arabia only capitulated at the last minute as a result of the IOC’s intense lobbying, and under the threat of being banned from the Games.
Even now, many challenges remain. Women in Saudi Arabia are not officially allowed to play sports, join national athletic federations, rent athletic venues, enter stadiums, drive, travel, or be seen in public without a male guardian. In 2009, the government shut down women’s gyms, and girls have no access to physical education in public schools. The country’s highest religious authority recently mused that all women should be housewives, out of concern that female athleticism violates strict Islamic laws and gender separation (one cleric even expressed fear that sports participation could cause women to lose their virginity.)
“The fact that so few women are ‘qualified’ to compete at the Olympic level is due entirely to the country’s restrictions on women’s rights,” said a spokesperson with Human Rights Watch. The only female participants are likely to be Saudis living outside the country.
The IOC has a history of activism: It banned South Africa from the Games from 1964 to 1990 because of its discrimination against blacks. And the Taliban’s treatment of women prompted Afghanistan’s suspension in 1999.
The only two other nations which have never sent women athletes to the Olympics, Qatar and Brunei, announced they will send a handful of female competitors to London this month. The fact that they bowed to pressure further proves that countries are not immune from external forces.
Going forward, the IOC should disqualify from Olympic Games any country which continues to refuse female athletes the right to train and participate. Saudi Arabia’s grudging concession is not yet a victory for women.