Nassima Atker, a homeless girl in Bangladesh, is one of the top surfers in her country despite living in a culture where the sport is deemed inappropriate for females. Her story has captured the interest of documentary filmmakers as well as Deputy Executive Director of United Nations Women Lakshmi Puri, who included her in a recent IOC speech.
It's hard to swallow that in 2012 there are plenty of places in the world that discourage or even forbid females from playing sports. Most of this kind of reasoning revolves around the notion that a woman's place is at home--not participating in activities that could damage their hymens and therefore "lose" their virginity. We can thank archaic faith-based reasonings mainly seen in third world countries for maintaining such dark-age philosophies. While these countries tend to be in the Middle East and some parts of Asia and Africa, it's clear that this way of thinking is slowly but surely on its way out.
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