Aim, shoot, watch and GOAL! by Núria González

Núria González, feminist, activist, lawyer, trade unionist and from Barcelona.

I have to admit to all of you that feminism has gained an ally as unexpected as it is powerful: FIFA.

For a few months there has been a clear intention to try to make women's football fashionable. Starting at home, we see how the two great teams, Barça and Madrid, have removed their girls from ostracism and have focused the lights on them, willing to explore and exploit that half of the population that, according to them, has been the enemy. natural of football afternoons, for being the reason why our loved ones abandoned us afternoon after Sunday afternoon, while we bitterly asked ourselves the reason for that Sunday misfortune. In the case of Madrid the issue is even more difficult because what will be its first women's team is a purchase from a club called “Tacones”. Could it be more appropriate? Obviously not.

But the most surprising thing is happening in the Middle East. The magnanimous regime of Iran has authorized its women to go to the stadium to enjoy the fantastic spectacle of the Iran-Cambodia qualifying match for the Qatar 2022 World Cup. And this country, Qatar, in a fit of libertine madness, has decided not to is going to restrict women's access to championship matches. How much progress, dear sisters! Not in our wildest dreams would we have aspired to such a situation of equality and freedom for our fellow Arabs. 300 years of feminist struggle based on blood, sweat and tears finally bear their true fruits...

But the thing doesn't stop there. For days we have been bombarded with news that Saudi women are finally going to be able to not only go to football, but play football!

In fact, these days the first official women's football championship is inaugurated in Saudi Arabia and be careful, there will be no restrictions with clothing to play!! Of course, they are not going to broadcast it on television, lest the bodies of those women, outside of the veils, burkas and burkinis, incite some impure thoughts from their countrymen and then we will have a problem. The problem.

The same problem as always, but one that some, due to a lack of ideas and others due to pure militant misogynistic patriarchy, want to plug us in, disguised as tradition and freedom of thought. The problem of understanding women as inferior beings, who must live locked up in their homes, in the shadow of their male guardians, or hidden under veils and niqabs, to hide the sinful nature of their bodies that, by the mere fact of existing , they already incite the sin of the heavenly being that is man.

Women who try to escape from this eternal confinement under cloth prisons (not clothing), are discriminated against, persecuted, repudiated, imprisoned and even murdered by the members of their community, in most cases.

However, now FIFA arrives wanting to sell tickets for matches and is not going to allow half of the market to slip away because of a trivial matter of “tradition.” And then, the Muslim gyrfalcons loosen their iron fist over their slaves so as not to jeopardize a business as succulent as a football World Cup and from the West, we are amazed at so much progress through shots on goal, VAR and a lot of bar. As Sabina said, long live jewelry!

We also ignore in passing the small detail that Qatar's football stadiums are being built with slave labor (in April 2018, more than 2 thousand Nepalis were already counted dead in the construction of stadiums and convention centers in Qatar according to the Foundation for International Democracy). And let's also ignore the fact that, once the ball stops rolling, the women who had been able to go to soccer, with prior permission from the entire macho family council, will once again lose even that insignificant moment of air in their faces. , if the wind gets on their faces, of course.

But this whole women's soccer boom serves to normalize that women in soccer stadiums, under veils, burkas and burkinis, are free women who live imprisoned by their perpetual obligation to appear decent by covering their shameful and sinful body of their own free will. Because that's what the folks at FIFA say. Be.