Universalism and the law of sport: Muslim women negotiating sports leadership

• Main Author: Radzi, M.W.
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: Islam; K Law (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/13649/1/0001.pdf; http://eprints.um.edu.my/13649/

Managing sport today is a serious business, and various rules of law as well as governance policies are being devised as such. Modern sport always insinuates the Modernity Agenda (Hargreaves 2001) while King (1995) suggests that the term 'modernity' have always been linked to the Enlightened 'West'. The West continued to exert global (economic) power long after the fall of the Empire through 'neo-liberalism' (Chong 2005). Few societies had resisted the transition to Modernity as fervently as the Muslim. Modern sport poses challenges to Muslim athletes, in that it conflicted with Muslim practices (Haji Omar 2000). Women issues on the other hand took shape amidst the typically patriarchal policy development processes, whether it is within the religious, socio-leqal, cultural, economic or political context. In the study of women movements, few could draw much attention and intrigue more than the study of Muslim women. The image of a veiled woman, literally separated and sheltered from the rest of the world is perhaps the most common association any non-Muslim would made of a Muslim female. This paper would focus on the place of women in Muslim societies more broadly and in selected geopolitical context such as Malaysia, the effect of this western idealism, including sport law, on Muslim women themselves when discussing about their experiences engaging in sport (Sfeir 1985; Haddad 1998; Hargreaves2001; Walseth 2003). The discourse would also draw on the literatures of the socio-Iegal position of women in the West as comparison (Riphenburg 1998; Stowasser 1998; Roded 1999).