Saudi Women Slam Dunk Sports Taboo

A group of women basketball players in Saudi Arabia has been defying stereotypes as one of the few female sports teams in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia practices an austere form of Islam in which women are forbidden from playing sport in public. But Jeddah United, which has grown its membership over the past decade from a dozen to 350, mostly children of both genders, works around these restrictions by playing and practicing on a gender-segregated private court. The female athletes of Jeddah United, based in Saudi Arabia's second-largest city, say that, although sport remains a minority pursuit among women in their country, attitudes are slowly changing. Perhaps the biggest symbol of this shift was Saudi Arabia's announcement last month that it would allow female athletes to compete at the Olympics for the first time at the 2012 Games.  (Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/05/sport/saudi-women-basketball/index.html?hpt=imi_mid)