A women’s soccer match in Jordan gained popularity on the internet after the opposing team gathered around a player who lost her hijab during the game.
The match took an unexpected turn when one of the player’s headscarves came undone and she struggled to put it back on. It was then when a beautiful thing happened: several women from the opposing team stopped playing and rushed to the player’s side – effectively halting the game – and shrouded her from the crowd until she was able to fix it.
ESPN shared the video that was originally shared by the Jordan football league:
Bigger than sports.
When a soccer player’s hijab started falling off to reveal her hair, her opponents gathered around to provide cover while she fixed it. (via @JordanFA) pic.twitter.com/rSUxM0S5Xe
Advertisement— ESPN (@espn) October 23, 2019
The video touched the hearts of many because it perfectly shows the power of women when we support one another. We are a force to be reckoned with when we come together, and everyone should know that!
To add to that, it’s beautiful to see opponents putting their differences and rivalry aside in order not just to respect a woman’s right to freedom of religious conviction, but to actively support that right.
This Twitter user said it best when they wrote, “What an amazing display of cultural awareness within a competitive setting. These players instantly shifted their minds from trying to win a game to an inclusive mindset to help an opponent for something bigger than the game. Beautiful!”
There’s a ton of misinformation out there when it comes to the Muslim headscarf and the women who wear hijab, and some people see it as anti-women. However, as Nadia B. Ahmad and Asifa Quraishi-Landes wrote for The Washington Post, “the notion that wearing a headscarf is inherently oppressive ignores the agency of the person who dons it”. They added that feminism holds that women should get to choose which practices are best for them without having to contend with anyone’s expectations.
