Women’s Wrestling in Ultraconservative Southern Iraq

Hamid al-Hamdani, former wrestling champion and five-times national wrestling coach of the year, introduced southern Iraq to women’s wrestling. Currently there are as many as 20 girls who attend practice. The girls shed their abayas (the full body covering) and practice wrestling holds, throws and grappling.

“[Women’s wrestling] brand new,” said club member Masar Hachi, 21-years-old. “It’s never been anywhere in Iraq before.”

Community leaders are less receptive. The notion of women in that type of activity horrifies them and creates, at times, hostile environments for the girls who participate in their schools and communities. Some of the for-runners in the disapproval contest that women wrestling is “anti-Islamic.”

One women said she and her daughters “were getting comments in the street, even in university — they thought it was strange for our society.”  Iraq’s Wrestling Union labeled the women’s club haram — forbidden.

Like that forbidden apple, Iraq’s women are bitting, and the knowledge of wrestling is sinking right on in, and it’s showing. The girls attended a tournament this past summer. “It was a success,” Hamid told press. “To begin with, officials from the provincial council boycotted it, but then they came — and the girls were covered. There were men there, media, lots of people.” Let’s hope the right thing happens, and Iraq’s women are allowed to pursue their hearts wishes.