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3 2 SXS W O R L D | M A R C H 2 0 1 7 I N T E R ACT I V E / F I L M | SXSW.COM Muslim Women Athletes Seek Level Playing Field By Doyin oyeniyi from seven Muslim-majority countries, Muhammad said her experi- ence was one that's common for Muslims. "I'm very vocal and verbal about the things that happen to me, not because I want to blow the whistle, but at the same time, I want people to know that these are the common interactions that people who look like me have, and it's not just as a public figure," Muhammad explained at the time. "This is a common occurrence for Muslim women, especially at the airport where most of us think it's easy to travel from one place to another, it's not a hassle. It can be an anxious experience for someone who looks like me, especially now, to have to go to the airport. That's not OK, and I have to speak up and speak out against it." Even though she is a Canadian citizen, Ahmed has also been con- cerned and vocal about the effects of the travel ban and any similar executive orders that may be on their way. In February, she wrote an article for Today's Parent, highlighting her worries about pos- sibly being detained with her 15-year-old daughter, who also plays soccer and wears a hijab, as they travel across the Canadian/U.S. border for soccer tournaments. "As RJ and I drove toward Buffalo in the freezing rain, we had a different kind of pre-game pep talk," Ahmed wrote. "Instead of reminding her to stay off her line, focus while in net, and only drop- kick the ball to her teammates once they were downfield, I was grilling her on her rights as a Canadian citizen." As the western world pays more attention to Muslim women athletes, including their lives off the court and the social and political situations they experience, Ahmed's "hope is that stories that are being told, are being told in a fair way, are being told in a nuanced manner." Shireen Ahmed and Ibtihaj Muhammad are among the scheduled speakers for SXSW's Sports programming track. See the full list of sessions at schedule.sxsw.com/2017/events/track/sports. S hireen Ahmed has been Muslim all her life and playing soccer since she was five. But it wasn't until she was 20, in university and decided to begin wearing the hijab that her religion and sports participation clashed. She was living in Toronto at the time (1997), and people in the area "had never seen a woman wanting to wear hijab and play before, so they had no idea what to do with it." Although she had been playing with the soccer club for years, and there was no formal rule that prevented playing with a hijab, the decision for whether or not Ahmed could play was left up to the ref- erees of each game, who often decided not to allow her to participate. "I paid [club fees] and I thought I was going to suit up for 16 to 18 games," she remembers. "And I did, but I played three of them." Her experience took place before FIFA officially banned head coverings in 2007 (and then overturned that decision in 2014), but it still informs her sports writing. Ahmed uses those emotions to not just report on sports news, but to also explain what certain situations feel like. Her entry into sports writing was also a way for her to correct frustrating coverage. "It came from a space where I wasn't happy with the way sports were being written about ... the way Muslim women in particular were being written about," Ahmed explains. She began with critiquing writing about Muslim athletes, for web- sites such as Muslimah Media Watch, an outlet that since 2007 has been analyzing the way Muslim women are portrayed in mainstream media. Ahmed says that coverage of Muslim women athletes is often voyeuristic or full of erasure. Muslim women have been playing sports for decades in Muslim majority countries, but because they aren't as common in the western world, sometimes mainstream writers treat them as a novelties or project narratives of oppression on them. Over time, mainstream representation of Muslim athletes has improved slightly, especially with high profile athletes such as Ibtihaj Muhammad, a fencer who, at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, became the first Muslim American to compete in the Olympic Games wearing a hijab. She was also the first Muslim American woman to win an Olympic medal. According to Ahmed, athletes like Muhammad have "normalized" the presence of Muslim women athletes, not just because she wears the hijab, but also because she is vocal about her experiences as a Black Muslim American, especially on social media. "Last year Ibtihaj Muhammad was also told to take off her head- scarf at SXSW, and the way it was reported was that she tweeted about it," Ahmed said. "She let people know instantly that this was happening to her, and people were horrified. Instead of having to rely on mainstream media that might not think it was relevant, you have her explaining her own situation, which is very, very powerful." Editor's note: In 2016, a volunteer working at SXSW Badge Pick-Up asked Muhammad to remove her hijab for her credential photo. As a policy, SXSW does not require hijabs or other religious head coverings to be removed, and the volunteer was asked to leave as a result of the incident. Muhammad has continued to use her prominent position to share her experiences. During the MAKERS conference in February, Muhammad revealed that she had been detained by U.S. Customs at an airport for two hours in December without explanation. Although it took place before the Trump administration's ban restricting travel Ibtihaj Muhammad, photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images