Imen Houalef specifically remembers the eyes of her coach on the first day Houalef wore a hijab to tennis practice, after three years playing together. How those eyes changed. How they made her feel, at 13, like suddenly she didn’t belong. Growing up in France, tennis was Houalef’s favorite sport, “a place where I could feel my best,” she says. But soon after that encounter, she quit. The court no longer felt like a safe space.
Houalef, a 22-year-old graphic design student, says hers is a common story among female athletes in France. Due to a ban on religious symbols in the context of several organized sports, including soccer and basketball, an athlete who wears a hijab is often faced with an ultimatum: Remove it, or watch from the stands. (“Hijab,” in Islamic tradition, broadly signifies modest dress, but colloquially it is used to mean a headscarf worn by Muslim women.)
In her search for a more inclusive environment, Houalef eventually discovered Les Hijabeuses—from “hijab” and “footballeuses,” or female soccer players—an activist organization that includes a soccer team and running club. “I was searching for a sport where the hijab was accepted,” says Houalef. “But that shouldn’t be the way it is. I should choose a sport because I like it, not because my hijab is accepted.” What she found, she says, was a group looking to “create opportunities for women to feel like themselves.”
