Women's Sports in Iran: Challenges and Prospects

What changes have occurred in the quality and overall conditions of women's sports in Iran compared to the first three decades after the revolution? What are its most significant damages, and what situation can we envision for the coming years? If we have access to old images of sports news from state television, we would be surprised that the names of female athletes were not mentioned. In the first half of the 1980s, there were no sports news for women at all. In the late 1980s, it was only mentioned, for example, that the women's athletics team from Isfahan became champions or that the karate team from Tehran was the national champion. In the 1990s, with the gradual flourishing of women's sports, this trend continued. Female athletes lacked individual identity, and their existence was merely categorized under the general term 'women's sports.' From the mid-1990s, with the leadership of Lida Fariman at the Atlanta Olympics, Zahra Mahrooqi's successes in shooting, the brilliance of a young girl named Atousa Pourkashian in chess, and the phenomenon of Bolourizadeh in athletics, the taboo of naming female athletes was broken. The main link between the public and female champions until the 2000s was the articles published in the press. Sports newspapers and magazines had fewer red lines compared to state television. Within state television, radio had more opportunities to cover women's sports news compared to television. Recent years can be considered revolutionary in the field of informing about women's sports. Not in official media, but in the virtual world and social networks. Over the years, female champions have found the opportunity to communicate directly with fans on their own pages. It was no longer the editors who decided what photo and how much editing and Photoshop should be published of female athletes. Now, on Facebook and Instagram, the champions themselves decided on their photos and news. While the circulation of some sports newspapers does not even reach 10,000 copies, some female athletes now have more than 50,000 followers. The 2010s marked the birth of female stars in Iranian sports. Girls who daily traversed social networks with videos or photos from their competitions and training. The possibility of preventing and disrupting the censorship apparatus in this process is negligible. Now that female athletes are seen and heard, we realize the problems faced by Farzaneh Fasihi, Iran's fastest woman and winner of the Asian silver medal. She told ISNA news agency: 'The federation's salary does not even cover my transportation costs. Even the price of a pair of spikes is nearly 800,000 tomans. I went to the General Directorate of Sports in Isfahan, but they didn't even know my name. The sports atmosphere in Isfahan is discouraging.' We understand how the champion women's basketball league team expresses discouragement that the federation president does not even have time to watch the final match of the premier league. Widespread financial problems, such as bus fare and providing uniform clothing for the team, discrimination in the distribution of facilities, gender discrimination in sending sports teams to international competitions, which always prioritizes men's teams, the government's focus on men's sports teams, and neglect of women's sports issues are among the problems that have not changed much from Ahmadinejad's government to Rouhani's government. Federations are required by their statutes to delegate women's sports affairs to the women's department within the same federation, but in most federations, the authority of this department is limited. There have always been controversies and ambiguities regarding the appointment or dismissal of most of these deputies. The future outlook for women's sports in Iran is hard to predict. The development and promotion of this field, like any other major issue, depend on political will and social transformations. Improving the current situation of women's sports in Iran requires a transformation in the attitudes of government officials towards women's sports. This issue, according to many champions and veterans of women's sports, is currently not a priority for the Ministry of Sports.