Seda Kaçan Turkey's 1st Female Track Racer in 30 Years Leaves Doubters in Dust
New Age Islam News Bureau
01 July 2022
• Saudi Women Unemployment Rate in Q1 Lowest In 20
Years
• Tunisia: First Edition of Takelsa Women's Festival
Promotes Female Farmers' Products
• Women’s Market in Kabul Creates Opportunities
• Idlib's Female Journalists Battle against the
Regime, the Patriarchy and the Misogynistic Interpretations of Islam
• 2022 AFC U-23 Asian Cup, Women’s Team Triumphs
Highlight Saudi Football Progress
• Basra Feminist Team Fights Violence against Women
and Promotes Their Rights
Compiled by New
Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/seda-kacan-turkey-racer/d/127379
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Seda Kaçan Turkey's 1st Female Track Racer in 30 Years
Leaves Doubters in Dust
Turkish track racing driver Seda Kaçan poses for a
photo in Izmir, Turkey, June 17, 2022. (AA Photo)
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JUN 30, 2022
Seda Kaçan went down in history when she participated
in the Turkish Track Championship as its first female pilot in nearly three
decades.
However, her road to track racing was not easy and the
29-year-old said she had to a lot of people trying to discourage her.
Kaçan recently participated in the 2022 Turkish Track
Championship, organized by the Turkish Automobile Sports Federation (TOSFED) in
the southwestern province of Izmir on June 18-19.
Driving for the Bitci Racing team, she finished the
first day in the sixth place, before coming fifth on the second day.
In doing so, Kaçan became the first female
track-racing driver since Ann Tahincioğlu, who competed in the 1992 Turkish
Track Championship.
Kaçan said she was interested in motorsports from an
early age. She has continued to follow her lifelong passion for driving while
also having a career in marketing.
Describing her difficult journey in motor racing,
Kaçan said she had no one in her family or around her interested in the sport.
“My first driving experience was virtual when I played
a racing game on our home computer. I realized, there was a burning desire
inside me for motorsports. As I got older, I would often steal the family car
and that’s how my talent behind the wheel was discovered,” she said.
Like many professional racers, she started with
go-kart racing before proving her doubters wrong to go professional as a track
championship driver.
Chasing a lifelong dream
Originally from western Turkey’s Kırklareli, Kaçan’s
professional career, however, only started after she moved to the country’s
largest city, Istanbul for university.
“I almost gave up my dream of becoming a racecar
driver because of negative opinions from people and since there was no such
opportunity in Kırklareli. However, after my admission at Yıldız Technical
University, I met people from the racing community,” she said.
Even some of them discouraged Kaçan by saying it was a
very costly sport to get into and was not right for her.
“After I started building a career in marketing, I
realized that I gave up on my passion very quickly. So, I researched and
attended various training. That’s when I met my current team director, Ibrahim
Okyay. He told me to start with karting,” said Kaçan.
At the age of 26, Kaçan started taking go-kart lessons
but once again, she was met with opposition.
“I ignored everyone who said 'Don't do it. It’s a
man's sport. How will you manage work and sports at the same time?’ and I moved
forward with my plan.”
“I’m glad I took this risk. I'm having a lot of fun
and progressing very well. Last year, I followed the Turkish Karting
Championship all season. I even took the podium several times. Before long, I
realized that if you follow your passing you can achieve very good results,”
Kaçan said.
Coming from a family with a modest income, it was
difficult for Kaçan at the beginning. "My mother is a teacher, my father
is in the military. My sponsors enable me to do this job. I also had a sponsor
in the Turkish Karting Championship. Bitci Racing and my company has supported
me a lot this year. Thanks to their support, I can do this sport.”
“It may be an expensive sport, but instead of giving
up, I saw that there were sponsors ready to support young people with talent,” she
added.
Looking forward
Kaçan said everyone at the track welcomed her with
open arms and she has made a good start to the season.
“The first leg in Izmir was like a training session
for me. This was my first professional race. More than anything, I was happy to
see all the athletes and staff welcome me by saying they were proud to see a
female pilot on the track,” she said.
“I want to prove that women can also participate in
motorsports and they should be supported, maybe even more than men.”
The 29-year-old is now aiming to become Turkey’s first
female track racing driver in the international arena.
Source: Daily Sabah
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Saudi Women Unemployment Rate In Q1 Lowest In 20 Years
A woman walks past a sign
during the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
October 24, 2017. REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser - RC12E9B6E840
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June 30, 2022
RIYADH — The unemployment rate among Saudi women aged
15 years and above reached 20.2 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2022
compared to 22.5 percent by the end of the fourth quarter of 2021.
This is the lowest unemployment rate recorded among
Saudi women in 20 years since 2001 when it was 17.3 percent, according to a
report carried by Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper based on official data.
On the other hand, the economic participation rate of
Saudi women in the labor market decreased to 33.6 percent by the end of the
first quarter of 2022, against 35.6 percent by the end of the fourth quarter of
2021.
The economic participation rate of Saudi women at the
end of the fourth quarter of 2021 was the highest in history. Thus, the
economic participation of Saudi women exceeded the target of 25 percent set in
the National Transformation Program 2020, while the rate of economic
participation set as a baseline within the program was 17 percent, recorded in
2017, the report indicated.
Source: Saudi Gazette
https://saudigazette.com.sa/article/622447
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Tunisia: First Edition of Takelsa Women's Festival Promotes Female Farmers'
Products
30 JUNE 2022
Tunis/Tunisia — The first edition of the Takelsa
Women's Festival was held on Thursday, under the theme "rural women's activity
and contribution to achieving a healthy environment."
This festival was organised by the Takelsa Female
Farmers' Organisation for Development, in cooperation with "Web
Tunisia" organisation.
The aim of this festival is to promote products by
women farmers in the region, particularly the 192 members of the association,
aged between 18 and 54.
The Takelsa Female Farmers' Organisation was
established in 2015, with support of the Tunisian Union of Social Solidarity
(UTSS) and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said President of the
organisation Hedia Ben Saoud.
It helps mentor and guide female farmers in promoting
and marketing their products, namely cattle breeding, poultry farming and milk
production, she added. Goods also include pepper products, spices, textile and
others.
A number of training programmes was held in the fields
of environment conservation and agricultural marketing for the benefit of
member farmers.
The biggest complication facing these women is the
lack of means of transport, Ben Saoud pointed out, calling on potential
partners to provide a private vehicle to these women so as to help promote
their products.
She also noted their lack of equipment and the need to
develop infrastructure, to ease the farmers' movement across the area.
Secretary General of the organisation Rim Ben Saoud,
for her part, urged the civil society to help the organisation become a centre
for ecological production.
The organisation has turned farmers from rivals to
partners, said UTSS local development coordinator Mohamed Meftahi, reiterating
commitment to keep supporting farmers and financing their projects.
Likewise, Mayor of Takelsa Walid Amari commended this
first edition of the festival, calling it a success for rural women. The
municipal Council is fully prepared to support the women of the organisation,
he said, noting that the locality is the largest in Nabeul governorate, with 27
thousand hectares.
It includes 17 residential tourist and industrial
communities, in addition to the distinctive beach and forest.
Source: All Africa
https://allafrica.com/stories/202207010347.html
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Women’s market in Kabul creates opportunities
July 1, 2022
Several female entrepreneurs formed a women’s market
to ramp up business and encourage women to shop.
The women entrepreneurs called on the Islamic Emirate
to support them.
“I call on the Islamic Emirate and the international
community to support the female entrepreneurs, particularly women in the
private sector,” said Nafisa, a female entrepreneur.
The market is the first to be dedicated only to women
customers and vendors in Kabul.
The female entrepreneurs hoped that such markets would
benefit their business.
“This market is the first to be inaugurated. We have
had some exhibitions this have a positive motivation for women,” Danish Sadid,
a female entrepreneur.
Fariba is a high school student who is now working in
this market as the schools for female students beyond grade six have remained
closed.
“We have opened a shop here and are busy working to
stand up on our own two feet and to have an income,” said Sayeda Ghazniwal, an
entrepreneur.
Meanwhile, the Afghanistan Women’s Network (AWN) urged
the Islamic Emirate to provide facilities for women entrepreneurs.
“We call on the Islamic Emirate to facilitate markets
for the female entrepreneurs in the country because this is a need,” said
Mohammad Anwar Sedeqqi, head of the AWN.
This comes as earlier, some women entrepreneurs in the
western province of Herat has reopened a similar market dedicated for women.
Source: Pak Observer
https://pakobserver.net/womens-market-in-kabul-creates-opportunities/
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Idlib's Female Journalists Battle against the Regime,
the Patriarchy and the Misogynistic Interpretations of Islam
Hadia Al Mansour
01 July, 2022
Female journalists in Idlib continue to face colossal
challenges when it comes to doing their job, whether collecting information, contacting
sources, or filming in public spaces.
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) has banned the latter under
threat of arrest, as the hardline Islamist group and de facto authority in
Idlib continues to consolidate its suffocating policies towards journalists in
Idlib, silencing those who speak out against its violations against civilians.
But HTS's oppressive security apparatus and strict
monitoring of female journalists are not all they face.
Even worse is the stance of their own community, which
sees women subjected to intimidation whenever they try to cover events, and
their every movement scrutinised. They are fully aware that one misstep could
endanger not only their professional life but quite possibly their actual one.
Added to these barriers are the issues faced by all
across the war-ravaged region – the repeated bombardment of the opposition-held
areas by the brutal regime of Assad, and the intentional targeting of
journalists; in addition to logistical issues like electricity and internet
blackouts as well as a lack of materials.
About why she chose to become a journalist, ex-teacher
Hana al-Mohammed (39) says: "I always felt things were unjust – like when
I observed how everyone at the teacher training college for girls in Kafranbel
was guaranteed secure employment and I wasn’t – instead I was forced to move
from school to school […] barred from a fixed job, just because I didn’t have
any connections in the ruling Baath party."
None of the certificates she obtained, the training
courses she did or the experience she gained was enough to secure Hana a
full-time teaching post. It was all "useless without the right connections
– the most influential factor within a corrupt system which had long plundered
our rights, dreams and aspirations," she says.
When the spark of rebellion ignited in Deraa and
spread across the country, feelings that many women in Idlib had long repressed
surfaced. On 27 April 2012, Hana marched for the first time with other women
from her town, Kafranbel, brandishing a banner that read: "death over
humiliation".
She wore a face veil, fearful of being recognised and
seized afterwards by Assad's henchmen, who carried out arrests after every
demonstration.
Soldiers and security services would raid people's
homes, having received detailed reports about those participating in the
protests from spies and informants. They would uproot the demonstrators from
the arms of their families like "the soul is plucked from the body,"
in Hana's words.
Hana chose to quit teaching and become a journalist in
2015, to document what was happening in Kafranbel, which experienced repeated
acts of terrorism at the hands of the regime and its Russian ally, and later
extremist Islamist factions including the Islamic State group (IS).
"As a journalist, I focused on women, children,
and other vulnerable groups and the challenges they faced in such a complex
situation, whether health-related, economic or to do with the security
situation," says Hana.
"I had to contribute to the victory of our
orphaned revolution in my own way, using my pen to transmit the hardships and
pain of those grieving at a time when there was a huge amount of media
misinformation penning alternative names for the revolution which bore no
relation to the truth: betrayal became 'coexistence' and 'civic loyalty', the
revolution 'a crisis', the revolutionary, an 'armed terrorist', the liberation
of the land from tyrants, a 'war'," she further explains.
Hana wasn't afraid of taking on a new profession, even
one that would invariably invite condemnation from Idlib's society, which
clings to a stereotypical view of women and places them into a
one-size-fits-all template that cannot be altered. However, Hana has broken the
mould and continues reporting reality as she sees it in defiance of her
circumstances.
Journalist Mariam al-Mustafa (40), for her part, faced
continuous threats from anonymous figures who used bogus WhatsApp numbers,
warning that she "would pay" for her attacks on HTS after she wrote a
report documenting their repression against women in Idlib and their
interventions to stop women working by claiming it violated sharia law and
religion.
"The threats made me more cautious – I started
using borrowed names and changing houses periodically. This has destroyed any
sense of safety and stability for me and my family."
However, she keeps working. Despite seeing her brother
arrested by the regime early on, then seeing him in the Ceasar photographs of
the regime's torture victims, to the repeated destruction of her home under
bombing raids – from which her and her children survived by sheer chance – to
the suffocating oppression of the current de facto rulers, she has remained
steadfast in her mission to continue writing and reporting, regardless of the
risk.
Journalist Rawaa Al Bakour (39) tells a different
story – one of the shocking responses of the local community to the launch of
the Mazaya magazine (an organisation working to empower women in Idlib).
She and three other female journalists started the
magazine in 2015; it was the first media experiment of its kind in the region.
The four volunteers hoped the magazine would be a success, and chose article
topics relating to women's issues – women's rights, lives, success stories,
ambitions, and challenges. The magazine was printed and issued on a monthly
basis.
The project had been going for less than a month when
heavily armed fighters from Jabhat Al Nusra, the group in control of the area
at the time, stormed the women's workplace. They trashed the office and
expelled the women, threatening to arrest them if they returned, accusing them
of immodesty, being infidels, and yelling obscenities, according to Rawaa.
"They deserved it, what do they want doing these
things, they should feel ashamed, why aren't they at home looking after their
husbands and children, by God, they've reaped what they sowed!"
These were the gloating words muttered by the men of
Kafranbel who amassed outside the Mazaya's offices as they gleefully followed
the course of events, words that still echo in Rawaa's memory.
"The men’s reaction revealed their deep-seated
hatred and rejection of any activity women undertake in our society. A logical
response would have been to feel proud of our work and what we were doing, and
to reject such a blatant assault on our right to free expression."
Rawaa says journalism has changed the way she
understands her life: "That I, as a woman living in a traditional,
patriarchal and conservative society, am not a 'lesser rib' – an idea that gets
drummed into us! Actually, I am capable of a lot, of breaking the stereotypes,
exiting the cage of custom and tradition and of fulfilling my potential."
Jabhat Al Nusra's attempts to intimidate Rawaa and her
colleagues didn't succeed. The journalists regrouped the following day, and a
number of local women came to offer their solidarity. They reopened the office,
cleaned up the mess and got back to work.
Rawaa continued with the magazine until late 2018 when
the regime unleashed a violent military campaign across south Idlib, and she
was forced to flee. But she hasn’t stopped working – currently submitting her
articles to numerous media outlets as a freelance journalist.
Sahir al-Idlibi (30), works in electronic journalism
and has trained many women in journalistic skills. She was deeply influenced by
the burgeoning movement of individual social awareness, which reshaped her
perspective on the demand for freedom, justice and democracy in a country where
these ideals had long been absent during the Assad family's rule.
She says: "I came to feel my role was no longer
just to record events, instead I felt I'd become a cog in the machinery shaping
these events – an essential partner in the creation of a new phase of Syria's
history."
According to Reporters without Borders, there are 60
female journalists working in Idlib province, and The Syrian Centre for Media
and Freedom of Expression ranked Syria 174th out of 180 countries for press
freedom in 2019.
The Syrian Centre for Journalistic Freedom (SCJF) said
in its last annual report that "restrictions on press freedom alongside
threats violating the safety and security of media workers and the freedom of
the press, formed direct causes for the majority of documented violations
during February 2022".
Hadia Al Mansour is a freelance journalist from Syria
who has written for Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Monitor, SyriaUntold and Rising for
Freedom Magazine.
Source: The New Arab
https://english.alaraby.co.uk/features/syria-female-journalists-idlib-challenge-patriarchy
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2022 AFC U-23 Asian Cup, women’s team triumphs
highlight Saudi football progress
June 27, 2022
RIYADH: The triumph of the Young Falcons at the 2022
AFC U-23 Asian Cup and the recent successes of the women’s national team has
marked yet more milestones for Saudi Arabian football this year, after the
senior team qualified for the World Cup in Qatar and the Kingdom’s clubs rack
up great results in continental competitions.
Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) President
Yasser Al-Misehal said: “The success of the Saudi national teams demonstrates
that our strategy is yielding positive results. Bringing back to the Kingdom
the AFC U-23 Asian Cup for the first time ever with our very own Saudi national
coach, Saad Al-Shehri, is a source of great pride and satisfaction.
“The players who achieved this great feat will be part
of the main drivers of the success of our National Team going forward.”
He added: “This gives us greater confidence and trust
in our younger generation, beside the achievements we had this year for both
men’s and women’s football. We are working on developing a pathway tailored for
every up-and-coming Saudi footballer on the grassroots level.
“We are working on extending a very large pool of Saudi
talent with the support needed for the upcoming generations of Saudi football
to match the highest professional levels of the game, be it in the technical
and tactical aspects of the game, as well as the dietary, psychological,
physical and athletic aspects.”
The U-23 victory comes soon after the senior Green
Falcons team qualified for their sixth World Cup participation ahead of this
year’s tournament in Qatar. Herve Renard’s team topped their qualification
group, which featured continental giants such as Japan and Australia.
The Saudi Pro League continues to grow in quality and
importance at the Asian level, with Al-Hilal currently the holders of the AFC
Champions League title. This year, three Saudi teams are set to feature in the
competition’s round of 16, with Al-Hilal, Al-Shabab and Al-Faisaly having
topped their respective groups in the first round.
Earlier this month, the Saudi Futsal National Team
also grabbed the silver medal in the West Asian Football Federation’s Futsal
Championship. The Green Falcons demonstrated incredible quality throughout the
tournament, before narrowly losing 5-3 to hosts Kuwait in the final. The team
continued their fine run of form on the road reaching the quarterfinals in the
Futsal Arab Cup taking place in Dammam following a thrilling 3-2 encounter
against Iraq that ended their campaign.
Saudi women have also enjoyed their fair share of
success in football this year. In February, the newly launched Saudi Women’s
National Team played its first ever official games against the Seychelles and
the Maldives, winning both games with the same 2-0 result.
The Kingdom concluded their successful hosting of the
2022 West Asian Football Federation’s Women’s Futsal Championship in Jeddah,
where the Saudi Women’s Futsal National Team made its debut in the competition
and claimed a silver medal following a 4-2 defeat in the final against Iraq.
Source: Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2111646/sport
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Basra Feminist Team Fights Violence Against Women and
Promotes Their Rights
Amr EL-Tohamy
25 Jun 2022
Fifteen young Iraqi women in the southern city of
Basra have come together to form an organisation to campaign against violence
against women and for women’s rights.
The organisation, called the Basra Feminist Team,
hopes to change stereotypes of women and generally improve their lives.
One member is 22-year-old Shukr Huyam, who said she
joined the group because she had experienced various “patterns of
discrimination” at university.
Young women in Iraq “are constantly subjected to
bullying, harassment, and violence of all kinds in daily life,” Huyam told
Al-Fanar Media.
Since last year, the team has been working to promote
women’s issues and mobilise the public against domestic and other forms of
violence, by documenting such acts and spreading information about them.
The founders are also trying to introduce the concept
of feminism and explain terms that may be misunderstood because of what they
call “widespread stigmas and myths about feminism.”
In Defense of Rights
The Basra Feminist Team is trying to create “a
balanced life, in which women can naturally obtain their right to education and
general life choices without guardianship or coercion,” Huyam said.
Huyam is a final-year student at the College of
Education for Girls at the University of Basrah who has a physical disability.
She said she faced difficulties because she could not go to the rehabilitation
centre without being accompanied by a male relative. Her family has also been
criticised because a driver takes her to university.
She sees women as “victims of false beliefs and
traditions that exclude and marginalize women in the public sphere.”
Demanding their rights puts women in the position of
being accusers, she added. They are called “traitors” because people are
unwilling to examine traditions that “constitute a barrier to women in their
normal daily life.”
A government statistic published last year recorded
5,000 cases of violence against Iraqi women in a single year. The report,
issued by Iraq’s General Secretariat for the Council of Ministers, said “the
real number exceeds the published figures because many cases are not reported
due to some customs and traditions that prevail in society.”
Raising Public Awareness
The Basra Feminist Team organises activities at
Basra’s educational institutions. The events aim to empower women by presenting
positive role models and raising awareness of women’s rights, including the
right to jobs they have been excluded from and their right to drive a car.
Women drivers are rarely seen in Basra because of “religious, security, or
tribal restrictions,” team members say.
The team also organises vigils to demand
improvements to divorce legislation,
especially in regard to a mother’s
rights to custody of her children.
Safaa Abd Ali, another co-founder, said the Basra
Feminist Team was created because of a feminist need, and a feeling that too
many “wrong things happened to women.”
Abd Ali, who is a law graduate, told Al-Fanar Media
that the team wanted to spread hope through positive messages about women’s
rights and demands. She said it did not receive financial aid from any party
and financed its work through monthly contributions from members, ranging from
one to five dollars.
The team aims to change the perception that a woman’s
role is limited to raising children in the home and other concepts that allow
guardianship of women.
Adyan Yarub, another team member, aged 24, said she
joined the Basra Feminist Team as a volunteer in the media department to
“restore the rights of Iraqi women, in Basra in particular, and support women
in rejecting restrictions and violence.”
Yarub, who has a diploma from Basra’s Southern
Technical University, said she would continue to be a member despite constant
campaigns attacking the group.
The Role of Social Media
Ruba Ali Al-Hassani, an Iraqi postdoctoral scholar at
Britain’s Lancaster University, noted an increase in news about violence
against women and girls in Iraq in recent years. She said there were two
reasons behind this: Social media helped people know about such stories, and
Iraqi society had become more militarised after the 2003 U.S. invasion.
The chaos that followed the toppling of Saddam
Hussein’s regime “caused the spread of terrorist groups and non-state armed
groups, which made Iraqis more vulnerable to violence in all its forms,”
Al-Hassani said.
She told Al-Fanar Media that high rates of poverty
contributed to men’s feeling aggrieved by state and non-state groups. She said
this had always applied to Iraq’s patriarchal tribes. They now exploited the
political and security vacuum to intervene and try to resolve their disputes
according to their own customs. These include child marriage and the exchange
of women to resolve disputes.
Al-Hassani’s research focuses on Iraq’s justice system
and the behavioural mores of Iraqi society. She says that the hard work of
organisations like the Basra Feminist Team was “making us witness a greater
public discourse on women’s issues today, which is a step in the right
direction.”
Al-Hassani said there was violence against women
throughout Iraq, not just in Basra. But there was “more violence in
conservative cities,” she said, “because they are more associated with
patriarchal traditions.”
Source: Al Fanarmedia
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/seda-kacan-turkey-racer/d/127379