A Footballer's Abaya, A Cook's Envy, A Warrior's Wish
a rant on gender, sports, society and 'enemies'
It was yet another time the main door had to be carefully shut.
The dribbling started right before the stairs as usual. The ball rolling on the ground to then echo bounces on the steps as the land continued to sleep. But the sky was always awake. Birds agreeing with me in their own language how pleasant that time of day was. Of course, the post-fajr hours were sublime given the scorching heat later in the day.
I’d traipse the grass to awaken more of the land with every nudge to my golden Telstar 18 glider. If I close my eyes I can still feel the ghost of that ball around my foot.
Entering that court, I’d practise like no one was watching - because no one was. Stepover, stepover, elastico on the cone. Sole roll, fient and sprint. Rocket and straight into a volley. I practised the precise angle of my laces with how locked an ankle and what part of the ball to hit - for a law-bending knuckleball. Messing up the follow-throughs most times. Maniacally signalling ‘did you see that beautiful shot’ to the air at other times.
And not needing to pick up my abaya before the run-up every single time.
Honestly, I didn’t have mornings like this longer than 2 (glorious) months, to my chagrin. But these were the 6 am memories tinted with joy. Where no boy half my height and arrogance the size of Arabian skyscrapers would tell me off because “the court is for men”. No thoughts of how people - guys - perceived my skills in a flailing robe, and whether I’m performing well enough to earn a place in that so-called court my family paid the rent for (we lived in a compound with sports facilities).
Those times it was indiscernible how long I ran for, how many shots took flight, what stupidity at high school was weighing me down, or what I was going to do after this (apart from a shower). My mind was as still as water. As hushed as those mornings. I saw outside of theory how the fortitude of mind is brought by that of the body. And it was just the beginning.
I lived in Riyadh. And I did love my abaya. And loved the fact was that I was a brown girl with a hijab, stepping into a court with football boots I had to be careful to not trip over.
My point isn’t to harp on about how hard I had it - that would blow it out of proportion. But it was since then I wondered about gender norms and societal expectations all. the. time. I was an insufferable feminist at some point, really. “Why should women not play a ‘non-girls’ sport? Because they’re feared to outshine men in yet another aspect? Why is the lifestyle of self-development, exploration, travel, athleticism reserved for one gender? Why must my hands remain soft and feminine despite ‘being allowed’ to do MMA? And why are people concerned I’ll look like a bodybuilder if I weightlift too much? I couldn’t even if I wanted to, aunty - my muscle mass is biologically a third of a man’s.”
Everything is introduced as preparation to impress a guy who doesn’t even exist in my life. Disgusting. I’m so grateful this mostly didn’t come from my parents, though, and often think that’s a major prerequisite in surviving girlhood in general. To not be groomed for becoming a showpiece.
A lot has changed since that vigour. But below are some things I still briefly opine on. Remember though, 1) This is an all over the place rant - you’ve been warned. 2) I don’t understand femininity and masculinity in entirety because of how context-dependent and fluid they are, let alone agree with the debate about it. 3) If you have something to add, save both our time by simply being courteous. You’ll be aired otherwise.
girls are to blame as well
To this day I can’t forget a fact I learned early. There were some girls in our compound who were never allowed to play outside by their parents. Others, though, were allowed, and simply didn’t want to come, or run, or get all sweaty, or face the initial embarrassment of being horrible at a sport, or swim for actual swimming instead of gossiping or or or. I had a personal vendetta against them.
And I confusingly peg that as a half-problem (after acknowledging the systemic traditions and developmental priming from the toys to the societal nudging, and of course their preferences) when seeing less women in the rooms I am in today. No matter where I go - work or outside - certain things just feel like a boys club. At some point it creates naturally waning obsessions. You don’t feel welcome, don’t get coached as much so can’t compete, can’t get too close lest others get the wrong impression, have to fight through more implicit biases to prove yourself always - even to half-wits - who wouldn’t just let it all be?
But whose loss would that be? A bigger problem is realising that decentering men is just as enervating as centering them is.
Here is when reward loops and the sheer effort to be skilled tend to filter those doing it for attention vs for the love of the game - football, tech, finance, entrepreneurship, combat sports, travelling, the whole shebang. Where are the women - able to climb out of stereotypes and brush past social constructs, untethered to fantasies and intellectual cop outs? Where are the women willing to try?
The extra mile is indeed never crowded, in either gender. I took a long time to stop seeing this verbalisation as arrogance and instead as a plea to other women and to God for arranging our union. No way are the niche people that special or dispersed that far to never collide as we rot in our bubble of engineered loneliness. After all, people are portals - and entrances of their worlds are rarely crossed in fear of rejection and in hope of unlimited choice. How bizarre we are, praying for the very things that have been dangling in front of us. If only we paused the tales of our differences.
we are not the same but so similar
I spent half my foolish years wishing I was born a boy to have the male privilege (cringing now). I see, even if possible, perhaps a millennium ago would have been a better time to rub a genie lamp for that, definitely not now. I see with all my brothers and cousins how hard it is to be a man. Well, a good man*. There are challenges from every corner (mostly because women no longer are in need of men and instead have to want them) and society doesn’t make it easy with little balance amidst the Tate incels and performative males ‘peacocking’ to pose as sensitive, feminine and well-read. The picture of a venus fly trap just popped into my head while typing. Eek.
I can’t recall which scholar said “our own intentions aren’t clear enough to us, let alone that of others”, so this is a reminder to look inward before assuming intentions.
My issue, though, has always been with the definitions. Femininity has been defined in descriptive words. Masculinity is defined in antonymic contrast to feminine traits. A woman is a woman; a man is whatever a woman is not. This traditional view of dichotomy seems to have been eclipsed by modern research (an individual can score highly in both traditionally masculine (e.g., analytical, ambitious) and feminine (e.g., affectionate, gentle) traits), but I’m not sure the public has caught on. We still call women better multitaskers, more creative, assign emotions to women (as if anger, fear and panic aren’t emotions too and only expression equates feeling an emotion), assign assertiveness and bulletproof mental strength to men while confident women are called bossy, females factually have higher pain tolerance than men, and men aren’t given the grace to be human, to feel or express, to seek help. Who benefits from these classifications, you ask? I don’t know, good ol’ capitalism maximising for productivity, consumerism maximising for profits when selling solutions to women, patriarchy maximising for greater control and a world tailored to one part?
The male gaze is interestingly an object for both women and men. We are conditioned to inspect ourselves from the male lens but men likely are just as much - keeping themselves as the viewer and the subject.
Because at some point she becomes a trophy - the guys want to be friends and the guy friends have something they “have been meaning to talk about”. All because an anomaly is a curious case, unfamiliarity is thrilling. They don’t know a thing about her (and I can almost guarantee they can’t handle all of her even if they do know; people want a muse, not someone to belong to, they want a challenge but only one they can win - yet another verbose essay). Men perform for other men - a ‘decent’ partner, life or family - all status objects, commodifying women right up there with V8 cars, sleek houses, unnatural body expectations. “Yeah she’s cool enough to flaunt, smart enough to impress but definitely not more than me, earns right below my numbers if at all. I’m now top dog.”
My point is dissimilar from these paragraphs though: all gender differences are bound by the era’s sociology, economics and even violent crimes - let alone the manosphere. The male gaze in art was an example.
There is often far more variation within each gender group than there is between the two groups, leading to massive overlap in the middle. It’s far more societal than psychological - in cognition, intelligence (including math), self-esteem, personality traits, leadership. Yes, our physiology, display of aggression and hormones are different. Perhaps, a step further, men also tend to have a stronger interest in “things” (abstract systems, engineering, physics), while women show a greater natural affinity for “people” (teaching, biology, philanthropy) and have greater life spans. However, our stereotypical thinking hurts each of us more than our innate Mars-and-Venus-ness (a myth FYI). And people forget that “differences are not deficiencies”. Think of the yin and yang - femininity in the masculine and vice versa.
the clashing overcorrection
Do I have to advocate and list the benefits of exercise on women’s holistic health, confidence, mental strength and stress levels every time? Do the barriers mean we must push harder against them? If lives aren’t already complicated enough must we have internal battles as childish as boys vs girls?
It’s an evergreen contention point though, the era has changed and so have each gender’s challenges but the present and future still worry me. Firstly and most proximally - this is the available pool to find a partner. Pathetic to say the least, and exactly why only my nieces and nephews are doting on me as I grow old. Then, the overcorrections and self-prescribed labels everyone wants themselves and others to fit in - girlbosses, giga chads, alpha and sigma, looksmaxxer Chads and Stacys (knowledge I was perfectly fine without), and other indoctrinations of podcast bros and the manosphere because of the aggrieved entitlement - a sociological term to describe anger or fear in young men upon losing their social status and privilege.
And although I have no idea what’ll happen in 5 years what concerns me is the calcified layers of indoctrination being fed into AI as training data. I’ll ask it to generate the best football player or the best cook - the image will be a man’s. Reality will be warped and fed back into the current version with even more silent sexism.
And within that system is benevolent sexism. As a counterpart to hostile sexism, it explains the tradwifery and control dressed as ‘protection’. Here’s a cool paper on how a group can be universally so disadvantaged yet so loved - the ‘women are wonderful’ effect. Weaponising religion for this is a whole other meaty topic that Rana has covered pretty well.
This damages men’s ability, fortitude and humanity whereas women are limited and oppressed. Under the opposite, women do gain more power but the results are harmonious. Hustle culture and post modern views are skewed to strip away our differences; the other side sees women doing it all. Earn enough, give enough, be enough - so women are used but don’t perceive it so, men never have space to develop their abilities, have menial efforts of weaponised incompetence and sayings like ‘an amazing man is just an average woman’ emerge.
Side note: the last one is sorta true - the bar is underground and friends are far superior (subject to change if I fall in love/the sun rises from the West). But why must we equate platonic and romantic relationships that way? “Dost bhi zaroori hain zindagi ki bheed mein, raat ko chai peene mehboob nahi aate.” However, this is a bigger topic to build, inspired by a Jo March monologue:
I don’t know, man. There’s so much chatter about gender and the lack of societal alignment regardless of culture. However, it’s one of those debates I have stopped engaging with or absorbing any of, online/offline - putting my head down and only introspecting what’s non-negotiable for myself or the handful close women and men in my life. Glad to mention this after 2400 words.
There’s bigger problems instead of fighting with teammates.
It’s far more important, even in political issues, to stop overanalysing, commentating, correcting or defending your view and focusing on building ourselves instead. Not everything needs to be engaged with in our finite time and attentional resources, and I’d rather leave a court I’m unwelcome in to join (or even create) an academy I am, and return to a bigger court that shuts everyone up for good - or further, carves me with all the hours of glorious effort. This goes beyond football.
I also think these views aren’t permanent. Most of my frustrations either didn’t exist since, or have been obliterated in, the last decade. Age and time change our perceptions on gender, culture, individuality, passion about sports, societal restrictions, opposite-sex boundaries, even love (yikes).
But the simple hope still remains. Fraternising with the ‘enemy’, fears of being taken advantage of, of being barred from your potential for exercising control, of being one-upped by the other gender due to insecurity - past all these, there must be a field, a court, him and her can meet in.
To be recognised for more nuance than overcorrected categories and dichotomies. To find “those amongst whom we can weep and still be counted as warriors”.
Amazing read!!!!