Saudis won't bring women to Olympics

[sportsfanatic]

www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/feb/26/olympic-outrage-saudi-women-athletes?newsfeed=true

The Olympics has a pledge on equality - why the hell can't the International Olympic Committee stand up for what it pledges to believe? Either countries should field male and female teams or they should be banned.

Love (not) the line in the article where it reports that women were once allowed to compete in a marathon in Saudi - as long as they wore abayas. FFS!

wow.

After reading that I wondered what happened with the Olympics during Apartheid in South Africa and found the following on Wiki:

'The International Olympic Committee (IOC) withdrew its invitation to South Africa to the 1964 Summer Olympics when interior minister Jan de Klerk insisted the team would not be racially integrated.[6] In 1968, the IOC was prepared to readmit South Africa after assurances that its team would be multi-racial; but a threatened boycott by African nations and others forestalled this.[7] South Africa was formally expelled from the IOC in 1970.[8]
In 1976, African nations demanded that New Zealand be suspended by the IOC for continued contacts with South Africa, including a tour by the New Zealand national rugby union team. When the IOC refused, the African teams withdrew from the games.[9] This contributed to the Gleneagles Agreement being adopted by the Commonwealth in 1977.[10]
The IOC adopted a declaration against "apartheid in sport" on June 21, 1988, for the total isolation of apartheid sport.[3]'

Why the hell can't they be as firm on sexism as on racism?

That is enraging. Because women don't matter and Saudi does

The article did state that Afghanistan was excluded from the 2000 Sydney games so there is precedent. Now I wonder what's so different between the two nations

Anyone up for writing to Theresa May?

is she the best person to write to? Maybe we should write to Seb Coe and David Beckham and people like that. I'm up for writing to someone

Oh, them too. She's Minister for Women and Equality.

I still can't get my head around that appointment

Anyone up for demonstrating when the Olympics are here?

AFAICS, all international sporting bodies are run by corrupt shaggers and I am fucking sick of seeing women's human rights being sidelined by these hideous men.

Shall we organise a demo? D'you think Feminista UK/ LFN or someone will be doing soemthing? Or are all demonstrators going to shot during the Olympics because of terrrorism?

yes, I am actually, I'm cross enough to go all the way to London. It's the bloody hypocrisy. If the Olympics didn't CLAIM to have all these high ideals it would be different but seeing that they (quite rightly) took South African apartheid seriously I think the ignoring of gender apartheid is a bit bloody rich. This kind of thing is what pressure from the international community means, and we are failing to exert it when we should be.

So racism not ok, sexism fine and dandy. Bastards.

is israel banned from olympics?

Thank you for reminding me of this one, I think writing to my MP would also be appropriate??

"When in 1977, the United Nations passed the resolution inaugurating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, it was asserting the recognition that injustice and gross human rights violations were being perpetrated in Palestine. In the same period, the UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system.
We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians." Nelson Mandela

I'm up for a demo. It's outrageous.

What on earth does this mean:

"The London Games would be the perfect opportunity for the Saudis to spell out a way forward," she [Tessa Jowell] said. "I would like to see them set out a clear plan for equal inclusion of women in time for the 2016 games in Rio de Janiero. This has to be a substantive commitment."

i.e., we'll kick the can down the road and make it the poor bloody Brazilians' problem if they still haven't got their act together in 2016.

Absolutely not. If the Saudis do not wish to compete in an international event that's up to them, but if they do they must do so according the rules of fair inclusion.

Why is this oppression allowed

Me too if I can find the time. But I will be writing to my MP and others on this and mention this at the next meeting of the feminists group I attend.

How crap is that? Why can't we tell them to get with the equality commitment or bugger off? Why should we leave it to Brazil??? What a cowardly thing to do.

It so pisses me off this. I agree racism not ok but sexism ok. It is the same with the golf and the golf clubs women are not allowed to join

What makes me puke even more is that most 'women' in this country will not even see it as an issue, it is 'just how it is'.

Science has found a cure for most evils; but has found no remedy for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings - Helen Keller. Nothing changes does it.

By the way, I would be up for a demo.

Fuckers. Absolute fucking arseholes. I was optimistic this time, after they sent Dalma Rushdi Malhas to the Youth Olympics in 2010, and she won a medal. It felt like a breakthrough, and I can't have been the only one to shed a little tear of pride over it. Apparently it wasn't. Malhas should be in London.

No way will the male 'saudis' take any notice of international indignation. sadly

To be absolutely fair - I suspect if South Africa had oil the way the Saudis do, our government wouldn't have spoken a word against apartheid . . .

Well lets not see to much into this. Vatican City is considered a country, but the Pope doesn't send a contingent to the Olympics either.

The simple fact that there is no Saudi womens team that can compete anyway is the reason why they don't bother sending a team to lose.

That guardian article is typical in it's high horse attitude and one sided argumentation. Girls schools do not have the level of investment to support sports facilities in a desert region. If these womens groups and politicians cared about Saudi women so much then there would be assistance rather than lip service.

Its not the government but the people themselves who decide their local schools curriculum. Its a colonialist and idiotic attitude that tells other countries how to run themselves when we have women rights issues ourselves.

Women are in almost all cases paid less than men and subject to more violence and harassment than men. But letting them run out for our entertainment for a event that was started by women oppressing males around 776 BC (who competed naked and sacrificed animals to pagan Gods) has a ring of irony to it.