Cry more, Karen. Imane Khelif's Olympic medal salutes Arab women

We should be writing about how Imane Khelif overcame adversity, beat the odds, and conquered the gendered pains of a conservative culture.

Hailing from the arid plains of Tiaret in West Algeria, Imane always had the heart of a champion. With her mother’s couscous sales and her own scrap metal earnings, she forged a path out of poverty, one bus ride at a time, towards her boxing dream.

And now, having guaranteed Algeria’s first-ever female Olympic boxing medal, Imane Khelif stands on the edge of greatness.

But that’s not what this story is about. In fact, Imane Khelif’s sporting journey has been entirely — and purposefully — removed from this discussion.

Instead, we find ourselves defending Imane's dignity as a woman, as an Arab woman, against the most egregious, racist, and appalling attacks from the highest rungs of white supremacy.

It’s not Imane Khelif’s fault that Italian boxer Angela Carini lasted 46 seconds in the ring before she abandoned the fight. Nor should she feel sorry that Carini broke down in tears, complaining that she felt “too much pain in my nose.” Clearly, she’d never stepped into the ring with “The Greatest”.

Angela Carini knew what she was doing in the post-fight interview. She knew that there had been totally unproven rumours surrounding Khelif’s gender and lapped it up, becoming dog-whistle-in-chief.

But for Western media, it was music to their ears. No fact-checking was done, no context, nothing. It was the angle they’d always dreamed of: “Arab transgender woman beats up white, European woman in Olympic disgrace.”

Yet none of that mattered, Angela Carini had fanned the flames of a culture war. Right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni waded in, casting doubt on the “fairness” of the fight and soon after a whole brigade of famous white, Western transphobes joined in the witch-hunt, including the author of Harry Potter books-turned-gender crusader, J.K. Rowling.

The witch hunt against Imane Khelif

The white feminist brigade doesn't care that the International Olympic Committee released a statement — that very same day — confirming that Imane Khelif was born female and has lived as a woman.

Nor do they care for the pictures shared by Imane Khelif’s own family: their twisted minds had been made up and they would exploit Imane Khelif and Arab womanhood for their own designs.

Mainstream feminism — and its melanin-light acolytes — is built on the Western idea of feminity. That’s why the malicious rumour of Khelif’s gender spread so quickly; Imane doesn’t have typical, white women features.

Imane doesn’t have light-coloured skin, she doesn’t have blue eyes or blonde hair. In the collective feminist psyche, she’s masculine. For racists, she’s too masculine.

As a result, this attack on Imane’s personal security is an attack on all women of colour. Remember, Imane isn’t the first, this has happened to Serena Williams, one of the most drug-tested athletes in tennis, Caster Semenya, and others.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by The New Arab (@thenewarab)

Western feminism, at its heart, doesn’t include women of colour, it doesn’t perceive threats on women equally: some victims of the patriarchy are more privileged than others.

This innate exclusion is due to the history of colonialism and its continued avatar, neocolonialism.

Western colonial countries have successfully managed to implant a strong and embedded white supremacist culture that still lives on today. From the West Indies to India, skin bleaching remains an epidemic, with other forms of toxic beautification rampant, all with the wish to look whiter.

Additionally, we should remember that Indigenous women and girls have long worked as servants for white women. The cliched image of white women being served by brown maids persisted through generations.

Imane Khelif’s stunning success is a loud, proud, and convincing upheaval of that racist dynamic and its beneficiaries.

That’s why Western media ignores all the hardships that Imane Khelif has endured — financial, cultural and patriarchal: overcoming such barriers threatens their construction of Arab women as submissive pawns.

Western feminism cannot bear the idea that an Arab, Muslim woman flipped the odds domestically and then defeated archetypical White, western females on the international stage.

We soon saw that spite seethe through. Before her quarter-final matchup with Khelif, Hungarian female boxer Anna Luca Hamori shared a video on her TikTok saying: “I’ll have to confront a man in the next match.”

But as Imane Khelif declared as she secured her Olympic medal, “I am a woman!” And not only is Imane Khelif a woman, but she's also the pride of Algeria, of all women of colour, and a lasting symbol of a global feminism that is inclusive, tolerant, and not built on white women always coming first.

Tharwa Boulifi is a Tunisian freelancer who writes about feminism, human rights, and social justice. Her work has appeared in Teen Vogue, Newsweek, the New African, African Arguments.

Follow her on Twitter: @TharwaBoulifi

Have questions or comments? Email us at: editorial-english@newarab.com

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.