Going from not being able to sponsor the Women’s World Cup to doing so in just a few years would be a huge boon to the kingdom’s image.
Saudi Arabia scored a major PR victory earlier this year when it became the only bidder for the 2034 men’s World Cup, all but guaranteeing it will host the event. Not content with one World Cup, it also seems to have its eye on hosting the women’s event in 2035. The Saudi Arabia Football Federation vice-president, Lamia Bahaian, recently told Sky Sports that “everyone would be welcome” if the country did host the tournament, and people should put aside their concerns about playing there.
Securing the Women’s World Cup would be a real coup d’état for the kingdom. Earlier this year, Visit Saudi’s attempts to secure a title sponsor of the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand were cancelled following backlash from activists, who raised concerns about the country’s abysmal record on women’s rights. Going from not being able to sponsor the Women’s World Cup to hosting it in just a few years would be a huge boon to the country’s image.
So will it happen? In fact it is possible. Earlier this year, The Guardian revealed that Saudi Arabia had spent at least $6. 3bn (£4. 9bn) on sports deals since the start of 2021, which many see as an attempt to divert attention from its abuses against human rights. washing works like a charm. “Previously, sports figures and brands had rejected offers of discussion with Saudi Arabia due to well-documented human rights abuses,” human rights organization Grant Liberty told The Guardian. “However, there has been a worrying shift in ethical stance, as lucrative deals are now accepted despite persistent and deteriorating violations. “
Let’s be very transparent here: the explanation for why Saudi Arabia’s efforts are so effective is rarely because they are new or smart. They are effective because a huge number of Westerners are desperate to take the kingdom’s money without it being too inconvenient. It is very convenient for the West to claim that Saudi Arabia is modernizing its attitude towards women and improving its human rights record, as Saudi Arabia is a lucrative trading partner. It buys billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from the United Kingdom and the United States. And, of course, it is also the world’s largest oil exporter.
Because Saudi Arabia is a successful ally, an embarrassing number of Western media outlets are content to regurgitate the country’s arguments about its modernization. When the country lifted the world’s only ban on women driving in 2018, for example, American journalists broke down admiring Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s progressive character. “He emancipates women, introduces music and cinema, and crack down on corruption, in a country with 15,000 princes,” proclaimed the advent of what was necessarily a soap opera on CBS’s 60 Minutes. All this while the kingdom cracked down on activists who pushed for the driving ban to be lifted and locked them up in prison.
None of this is to say that there has been no progress on women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. There have been, and we should celebrate that. For example, women were only allowed into stadiums in 2018, and now there is a Saudi Women’s Premier League. But even if progress is to be acknowledged, there is still plenty of reason to worry. In March, for example, Saudi Arabia codified a non-public prestige law (it was charmingly enacted on International Women’s Day) that officially enshrines male guardianship over women. Although Saudi government officials have called the law “progressive,” it is not at all. According to Human Rights Watch, it “codifies discriminatory practices and includes provisions that facilitate domestic violence and sexual abuse in marriage. “
The kingdom is also engaged in a draconian crackdown on free speech. Mohammad Alghamdi, a retired teacher in his mid-50s, was recently sentenced to death for tweets criticizing the country’s leadership. Guess how many followers he had? Ten. Just 10. Similarly, a Saudi woman with just over 2,500 followers was sentenced to 34 years in prison last year for having a Twitter account and for following and retweeting dissidents and activists. Allowing Saudi Arabia to host the Women’s World Cup while it simultaneously locks women up for criticizing the regime would be a shameful farce.
“Persistent gender stereotypes mean that women’s role in organised crime is not recognised by criminal justice practitioners,” a new study by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe shows. Sometimes, being underestimated can work in a woman’s favor.
“Angry youths stormed the police station in an attempt to pick up the girls, who had been rescued by the police after suffering genital mutilation, where they overpowered the policeman who was on duty and stoned him to death before burning his body with a mattress. “, reported the Kenya News Agency. Extremely sinister.
The marginal are moving closer to the mainstream.
Moira Donegan reviews Allison Yarrow’s new ebook, Birth Control, for the Nation and is thrilled with the way she champions the herbal birth movement. “It is here, in its enthusiastic religion in the reproductive role of women, that the movement begins to resemble that of the anti-choice fanatic,” Donegan writes. “Yarrow’s e-book promotes a view that minimizes pregnancy complications, dismisses the high rates of maternal mortality in the era of pre-medicalization, insists that the pain and worry experienced by hard-working women is psychosomatic. . . And she says childbirth is almost never complicated or harmful enough to warrant a doctor’s presence.
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