Female Exercise Freedom

News from Saudi Arabia brings refreshing nuggets of information that Ladies will now have the opportunity to exercise at sport centres. It hasn't happened yet, but this another step to freedom against the zealots worried that the women's hymen's would break.

Saudi Arabia has set up a ministerial committee to consider allowing women's sports clubs, al-Watan daily newspaper reported on Saturday, despite opposition to female exercise from religious conservatives. Abdullah al-Zamil, a senior official from the General Presidency of Youth Welfare, the top Saudi sporting body, said the committee was being formed to end the "chaos" surrounding women's sports clubs which are effectively unregulated, Watan reported. 

"The mission of the committee is focused on building a system for these clubs," the newspaper, owned by a member of the Saudi royal family, reported Zamil as saying. In the austere desert kingdom, powerful clerics have long argued against women playing sports or doing physical exercise, forcing female gyms to be designated as expensive "health centres". A member of the top clerical body in 2009 said girls should not play sports lest they lose their virginity by tearing their hymens. State-run girls schools are banned from doing sports, but private girls schools are allowed to offer sports classes. 

Reuters