The struggle faced by Iranian women athletes is not a product of recent years. Its roots lie in the 1979 Revolution, when Islamists overthrew the monarchy and established a new political order that reshaped Iran’s social and legal landscape. In the aftermath, a series of discriminatory laws were introduced across public life. Sport was among the sectors most affected, with women progressively excluded from many disciplines and competitive spaces.

This shift represented a sharp break with Iran’s sporting past. Before 1979, Iranian women were among Asia’s leading competitors in sports such as swimming, volleyball, and basketball. The imposition of Islamist rule therefore triggered a profound social shock. From the outset, women responded with resistance, staging protests, defying official directives, and rejecting enforced gender segregation and discrimination in sport.

Despite this history, the response from international sporting institutions has been limited. Over decades, sustained lobbying by the Iranian authorities has contributed to a narrative within the International Olympic Committee and its affiliated bodies that frames restrictions on women’s sport as a matter of culture or tradition. That interpretation obscures a central fact. The limitations imposed on Iranian women athletes are not rooted in societal custom but in state policy introduced and enforced after 1979.

Iran national women’s volleyball team 1966

IOC’s Miscalculations

During Antonio Samaranch’s tenure, the Olympic movement’s influence in the Middle East, particularly in Muslim-majority countries, was considered a strategic priority. However, a lack of in-depth understanding by the International Olympic Committee led Samaranch into a serious miscalculation. He underestimated the political role of Islam, did not grasp the religious rivalries among countries bordering the Persian Gulf, and believed he could convince the religious rulers of these countries that Olympism was compatible with Islamic values.

Samaranch saw appeasement as the best way to secure even minimal participation of women athletes. He ignored the voices of countless women who were barred from competing in countries such as Iran due to mandatory dress codes. In this context, he openly supported the initiatives of Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, the daughter of one of Iran’s most influential clerics, during her tenure at the National Olympic Committee of Iran.

The Hashemi Rafsanjani family is one of the largest political and economic power blocs in the country. While Faezeh Hashemi no longer enjoys popular support, she has historically advocated for internal reforms within the Islamic Republic to prevent its collapse. She describes herself as a human rights activist working within the framework of Iranian law and has been imprisoned several times amid internal political tensions.

Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani

Islamic Women’s Games

The Islamic Women’s Games and the creation of the Islamic Federation of Women’s Sports were initiatives led by Faezeh Hashemi, supported at the time by Juan Antonio Samaranch, then president of the International Olympic Committee, and Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, then president of the Asian Olympic Council.

Hashemi sought to give Iranian women’s sport an Islamic identity and to attract Muslim women athletes to these competitions. However, these initiatives were not aimed at expanding women’s freedom in sport. Instead, they reinforced strict Islamic regulations and helped maintain the system of control over female athletes in Iran.
The political perspectives of many Muslim-majority countries differed from Iran’s approach, but with backing from the IOC, Hashemi’s programs served to legitimize the restrictions in place rather than challenge them.

Hashemi officially entered the sports arena in 1992 as Deputy for Women at the National Olympic Committee of the Islamic Republic of Iran. She organized competitions in 1993, 1997, 2001, and 2005, but these events followed the state’s Islamic framework and did not provide Iranian women athletes with real access to international competitions. Women in gymnastics, swimming, diving, cycling, boxing, wrestling, judo, bodybuilding, and equestrian sports have been barred from world championships and the Olympics since the 1979 Revolution, and this exclusion continues to this day.