When girls have no opportunities and women have neither time nor energy: the participation of Muslim female cleaners in recreational physical activity

Participation of Pakistani Female Students in Physical Activities: Religious, Cultural, and Socioeconomic Factors

“…She knows the importance of being in good physical shape according to Islam. Sughran's argument is similar to that found in previous studies (Lenneis and Pfister 2017;Walseth and Fasting 2003). Two of the other students in the study, Zubaida and Naila, also faced similar limitations.…”

“…The idea that exercising is important according to Islam, but the cultural requirements of Western and Islamic sports-related environments conflict with religion (Islam) has been supported by many scholars and by Muslim feminists who work for women's right to participate in sports (Abdelrahman 1992;Al-Qaradawi 1992;Miles and Benn 2016). These findings are also comparable with studies such as Laar (2019), Walseth (2015), and Lenneis and Pfister (2017); according to those studies, religion does not seem to have a large influence on women's sport participation. On the other hand, these findings contradict other studies suggesting that Muslim women's participation in sports is challenging due to religious restrictions (De Knop et al 1996;Zaman 1997).…”

“…If separate facilities, such as indoor grounds, gymnasiums, or separate swimming pools for women were provided, then her parents might allow her to participate in sports. These findings are supported by Walseth (2015), Lenneis and Pfister (2017), and Amara (2013), who found that a gender-segregated environment was a necessity for women's participation in sport. Similarly, according to observations by Flintoff and Scraton (2001), and Wright (1995), due to the presence of boys using the same facilities, Muslim female students do not want to participate in sports, and feel conscious of their body shape and skill level.…”

“…In order to assess the elements that influence the sports participation of Pakistani female students, qualitative results are provided in the current study. Similar to other studies on women's experience in sports (Lenneis and Pfister 2017;Mirsafian et al 2014) and in Pakistani society (Fazal et al 2019), we conducted semi-structured and informant-style interviews with 20 female students (see Table 1) from Larkana city, which is located in the south of Sindh Province in Pakistan. The students were interviewed in Sindhi (the local language most spoken in the province, and the mother tongue of both interviewees and interviewer) and the interviews were translated into English.…”

“…Finally, after a thorough study of all 20 narratives, we compared the themes in all the transcripts to determine the similarities and differences among them. In the following, we give detailed information about the generalized comments of participants in broad themes (Mirsafian et al 2014;Fazal et al 2019;Lenneis and Pfister 2017), including religious and cultural values, economic and career issues, lack of sports facilities, family values regarding physical education, social factors, and personal factors.…”