DOHA, Qatar – At the W Hotel in the tony-tony-tony West Bay district, the view stretches south, toward the downtown skyline. The scene is even fancier, more opulent, inside a second-floor lounge on Monday night. There’s a DJ. A VIP section. A spotlight. Red carpets. The works.
Still, the late-arriving crowd that’s assembling inside—one guest is dressed as Ted Lasso; another perches an (obviously-not-real) bald eagle on his shoulder—is not here for the gleam. No, this is the headquarters for U.S. soccer supporters, and what they want is fellowship, regardless of anything, least of all gender.
There are women inside on Monday night, and that might not seem like a big deal. But in a country where women are essentially treated like second-class citizens, confined by gender inequality, told how to dress and mandated to obey their husbands, it’s not insignificant at all. These women traveled to the first World Cup in the Arab world, knowing that risks existed and not knowing what to expect. Restaurants, bars and hotels—those presented little issue. Consider each an oasis of normalcy. But tournament games, traveling to them, and everyday tourism left plenty of unknowns.
Many women carried their concerns along with their suitcases to this particular World Cup. They heard all sorts of things: that women were only allowed inside of soccer stadiums in recent years; that their bodies needed to be covered from their shoulders to below their knees, at all times; that Qataris might object to things like … their presence. Many heard from concerned family members who wondered whether, when Qatar invited the world for the biggest sporting event in existence, it really meant the world, the half with Y chromosomes.
Lila Asnani, an image consultant in Las Vegas, heard those same things and shared some of the same concerns. But she decided to fly to Doha anyway, because she is a soccer fan, because she is a woman and, above all, because she wanted to connect with people who might consider those notions mutually exclusive. She wanted to show them what female empowerment looked like when embodied, whether in demeanor, interactions or outfits.
She is Wonder Woman, after all—at least in costume, at international soccer matches, as inevitably shown on television. Millions of viewers across the world can see her bare shoulders, her make-up, jewelry, tights.
“It’s a fallacy that only women or only men love soccer,” she says, while a bus of U.S. fans rumbles toward Al Bayt Stadium for the England game last week. “Soccer is universal. Soccer is passion. Why should we limit women’s value? Need to be validated by our partners? Turned into cheerleaders?”
She smiles. “We should have freedom to express what we love.”
How does that go, here, in Qatar? What’s it really like, on the ground?
Well, that night, wearing her usual costume, Asnani poses for two photos with an Islamic woman in the stands. She’s heartened that the woman approached her, given their differences in clothing, religion (Asnani identifies as Episcopalian Christian) and political views (Asnani leans liberal). She understands why the woman doesn’t want her to post a picture with the woman’s face exposed. Hence the second snapshot. She wishes they could have a longer interaction, actually connect. In other words, this brief moment underscores her experience overall: mostly positive, definitely different and not exactly what she’s hoping for.
Like everything else in Qatar, it's complicated.
