“The smirk of a male who’s (sic) knows he’s protected by a misogynist sporting establishment enjoying the distress of a woman he’s just punched in the head, and whose life’s ambition he just shattered.” This was a comment from J. K. Rowling on a photo of woman boxer Imane Khelif after defeating Angela Carini in an Olympic boxing match.
Imane Khelif, a 25-year-old Algerian boxer, has now advanced in the women’s welterweight division towards a possible gold medal victory in women’s boxing at the Paris Olympics. Until recently, Khelif was relatively unknown outside of women’s amateur boxing circles. As she prepares to compete for what would be a historic win for women’s boxing in Algeria, she is also fighting a misogynistic and transphobic disinformation campaign on social media from some of the world’s most prominent men and women, calling on banning Khelif over misconceptions about her gender.
In her first match at the Paris Olympics, Khelif defeated Italian boxer Angela Carini, who abandoned the fight within the first 46 seconds because of the strength of her opponent’s punches and later refused to shake the Algerian athlete’s hand in protest. Previously, Khelif had trained with Carini and her coaches in Assisi, Italy, where the Algerian athlete did most of her training as a young boxer with the national team. But Carini’s behavior and abandonment of the fight ignited rumors about Khelif’s gender; these rumors were fueled by reports that the International Boxing Association had banned her from competing last year – shortly before the gold-medal match – alleging that Khelif had elevated testosterone levels. In an interview with El Hayat TV, Khelif explained that she took detailed tests in Paris to counter the false accusations and that the ban caused her to fall into depression. Yet, in 2022, it was the International Boxing Association that awarded Khelif a silver medal at its world championships.
Before her faceoff with Khelif, Hungarian boxer Luca Hamori, (who is only one inch shorter than Khelif and in the same women’s 66kg weight class) shared an Instagram image repost of a muscular monster with horns looking down at a woman boxer. Khelif’s coach, Mohamed Chaoua, remembers first meeting Khelif as a girl who was smart and ambitious with “interior suffering.” Perhaps it is in remembrance of that suffering that after Khelif’s unanimous decision victory over Hamori, the trainer yelled repeatedly in Algerian Arabic hagroha, referring to the rage and indignation that result from enduring injustice. In an interview following the same match, Khelif declared in tears “I want to tell the entire world that I am a woman and will continue to be a woman.”
What should have been a celebration of the culmination of eight years of dedicated training, has turned into a moment in which a woman of color is once again forced by detractors to justify why she merits her success. The proverbial glass ceiling hangs lower above women of color, and the cyberviolence to which Khelif has been subjected is only the latest in a series of attacks on women of color, whose success is attributed to the “unfair advantages” bestowed upon them. In parallel, women of color in senior leadership must be a “DEI hire,” just as a strong competitive champion must be a man.
The pervasive hate and misogyny towards Khelif online represents a larger threat to all women. In these times, I remember Souad Massi’s moving lyrics, Nadir Moknèche’s poignant film, Viva Lalgérie, and Cheb Hasni’s beautiful songs; Hasni was assassinated at age 26 by a fundamentalist group that did not approve of him.
In J.K. Rowling’s comment of disapproval, she claims to see Khelif as a man smirking at a woman he has harmed. I don’t see a smirking man. I see a woman touched by another woman’s defeat, with which she has long been familiar – a woman who, coincidently, bears strong resemblance to one of my cousins.
What I also see is hatemongers using the defense of women’s rights as a rationale for the online abuse and dangerous expectations of gendered sameness. The burden of proof should not fall on Khelif but rather on her cyberbullies, who should familiarize themselves with differences amongst women. Rather than troll hard-working women, Rowling and others could use social media as a platform to advance the rights of women and girls around the world. Despite its many dangers, social media can also be a good tool for mobilizing women to protect one another and to drown out the hate with the power of community building.
To Khelif: Gold, inshallah.
