The portrayal of Muslims in Bradford is that everyone is really extremist and people don’t let their girls do anything.
A group of young British Pakistani girls from Bradford punch and jab heavy bags that hang from the ceiling of Huggy’s Boxing Gym — a stark comparison to the expectations of Muslim girls from their community, The Independent reported.
Although there is nothing incongruous about the gender of boxers in these days of Olympic medal-winning female fighters, these young women are also British Pakistani Muslims.
This group of girls are preparing for their roles in No Guts, No Heart, No Glory, a play about the lives of young female Muslim boxers which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival last year and arrived in London on Friday.
Most of the girls are not professional boxers and none are professional actors. They are simply college and university students whose real-life stories and experiences have been incorporated into the play.
“The portrayal of Muslims in places like Bradford is that everyone is really extremist and people don’t let their girls do anything,” says Evie Manning, director of the play and co-founder of the theatre company Common Wealth. “But there are liberal Muslims in the community who don’t get talked about,” she added.
“I was interested in writing about Muslim women and empowerment,” Zia said, adding that she “wanted to challenge expectations and stereotypes.”
Ambreen Sadiq, one of the boxers, was never sure if she’d be allowed to box. ”I thought it was a boys’ sport but my parents said I should go for it so I had my first competitive fight when I was 15. It was the biggest buzz I had ever had.”
Although her parents were supportive, Ambreen faced some opposition from relatives who questioned her parents about allowing their daughter to fight. This led Ambreen to a lot of confusion as to whether she was allowed to fight as a Muslim girl.
She consulted a scholar who told her that men and women were equal and that she was allowed to fight. She is now a former UK national champion and all those relatives who were initially hostile, cheer her on.
The women who feature in the play have a lot more freedom than previous generations and have more supportive parents. They spoke of other young women who were not allowed to go to university because of their gender and others were hastily married off after they were done with their studies.
Manning and Zia’s play was much needed to portray the story of young Muslim women in Britain, who are wrongly portrayed by the media as being oppressed and subservient.
Photo: The Independant
