Paper short abstract:

Female empowerment in the Middle East remains a hotly contested topic. As a white Western woman from the United States, I reflect on how my privilege impacted my Omani informants' views of their gendered roles and their gendered possibilities. All via ethnography and the popular sport of football.

Paper long abstract:

Non-governmental agencies and non-profit human rights groups have continued to define and proliferate the Western conception of the term” female empowerment” with little consideration for cross-cultural values of what empowerment means to the women themselves. Perhaps the best way to explore emic notions of female empowerment and gender roles for women whose identity formation does not fit within the Western paradigm of empowerment is to dive into an area of society where women are both nonexistent and culturally discouraged. For women in Muscat, Oman, and throughout the Middle East, one major area is athletics, more specifically, football. Research stemming from advocacy anthropology of a young Omani girls’ football team has revealed that female empowerment, or rather a woman’s positive sense of identity formation, is not a statistic that can be measured and judged cross-culturally. Rather, the notion of empowerment is what Naila Kabeer calls a woman’s choice perceptions and feelings. Football may not reveal female empowerment in all its subjective facets, but it does unravel the cultural layers in Omani society that show how women feel empowered and what globalization is contributing to this change in perceived empowerment.