Trickle Down Sports: International Sporting Events Hosting Changing Attitudes towards Muslim Women’s Sports Participation in Qatar

After successfully hosting the Asian Games in 2006, the tiny oil rich nation of Qatar burst onto the international sports scene. The emirate further cemented its position in the world of sport with its competitive if ultimately unsuccessful bids for the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, and its stunning coup to win the hosting rights for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. At the same time, Qatar’s global aspirations in the sports world have been accompanied by pressure to increase participation of women on its international sports teams. For example, in the most recent Olympic bid, it did not escape notice that Qatar remained one of only three countries that had never sent a female athlete to the Olympics.1 The International Olympic Committee strongly encouraged Qatar to include women in London,2 and made available wild card positions for female Qatari athletes. In a historical moment for Qatar, in March 2012 Qatar announced that Qatari women would be on the London 2012 team.3 Additionally, Qatar has recently invested heavily in the development of elite female Qatari athletes. At the 2011 Arab Games hosted by Qatar, for example, of the 785 female athletes competing 13% were Qatari women,4 and the Qatari women won 10 gold medals. Thus, it would appear that women’s sports participation at the elite level is having noticeable effects in Qatar. However, whether it will make a difference in the sport participation of non-elite Qatari women is an open question. In this chapter we explore the potential emancipatory effects of sport for women who have historically experienced far fewer freedoms than their Western counterparts.