Egyptian women want to roller derby and ride scooters

CAIRO — Gliding on roller skates and sporting spandex with yellow images of Batman, Lina El-Gohary crashed to her knees at a stadium in eastern Cairo.

The member of CaiRollers, the first roller derby league in Egypt, quickly pulled herself up.

"We hit each other, fall down and in a few seconds — no time — we get up again and complete the game. No pain, no crying, nothing," El-Gohary said. "If we can do something like that for fun, we can do something for our career, or for the country."

CaiRollers (rhymes with High Rollers) has 15 full-time players and others seeking to join. The league is unique in a country where women don't often play sports — and where roller derby is mostly unheard of. Founded two years ago by two Americans who loved the sport, it is among several initiatives that sprouted recently to empower women.

"A lot of people outside Egypt assume the women are more repressed than they are," said Angie Turk, co-founder of the league. "They are some of the most empowered and positive and hardworking women that I know."

The group defies social norms simply by playing roller derby at a rundown stadium in Egypt's capital. The women slam into each other, block and push at practices held twice a week. For their annual match held in June, the women split into two intra-league teams with the edgy names of ISIS Crisis and KillaPatra.

"We live in the eastern part of the world, and usually women are not allowed to do many things," said Nawal Ahmed Hamoud, 27, co-captain of the league. "This is how we are brought up. We have traditional rules." Now is the time to change that, she said.

In Egypt, roller derby challenges women to be persistent. It offers an atmosphere of support and encourages players to work hard, according to several league members. A primary draw is the camaraderie of belonging to a team, and a common outcome is the women gain self-confidence.

"Learning that I can actually hit people on that track — I think that actually helped me, because it made me realize that I have power and that I can hit people if I wanted to, in a legal way," said Raham Diab, 22, a player in the league. "It does boost my confidence."

CaiRollers is one of many programs to empower women. Several awareness campaigns were launched over the past few years to battle sexual harassment, which is rampant nationwide. Last year, an online movement called We Will Wear Dresses encouraged women in this conservative country to wear what they want. Last month, a group called Girls Go Wheels began teaching women how to ride a motor scooter.

"Being on the bike makes you independent," said Basma El-Gabry, 21, a university student and founder of Girls Go Wheels. "Instead of waiting for your husband, brother or sister or someone to give you a lift, you do it yourself."

The scooters consume less fuel than cars do, she said.

"We have a fuel crisis, traffic crisis, environmental crisis," El-Gabry said. "You don't have to give up and say, 'My country is in a very bad state, and I can't do anything.' ... You can find a way, but you have to think outside the box."

Since the revolution in 2011 that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, young women have grown braver and more creative, said Iman Bibars, who chairs the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women and is regional director of Ashoka Arab World, a network of social entrepreneurs.

"We have to make people get used to us — to whomever we are, in whatever dress we want to wear and in whatever vehicle we want to ride," Bibars said. "We are equal to men. We are not different, and the street is ours as much as it is everyone else's."

Finding ways to foster change has proved challenging. El-Gabry spent five months convincing her mother to let her ride a scooter. When she launched an online group to support other women wanting to learn how to ride, opponents said it was dangerous for women and against cultural traditions, she said.

That didn't stop Riham Essam, 36, a creative designer, from learning how to ride in an empty parking lot on a recent evening.

"I never rode two wheels before, so I fought my fears and told myself: Why not?" she said. "The first day, it wasn't easy at all, but each session is getting better."