Millions of women before us fought so that we would even be able to imagine pursuing our careers today. Honouring their struggle means believing in ourselves and using success to support those who don’t yet have a voice. For those who, like me, come from places like Afghanistan, even breathing is an act of resistance. But every society finds something to fault in women; the real battle to win is gender equality.
Marzieh Hamidi
Born in Iran in 2002 to Afghan refugee parents, Marzieh Hamidi grew up between the two countries. At the age of 14, she discovered taekwondo and turned tatami into her first space of freedom. After a period in Kabul, she joined the Afghan national team, became a champion in her category and represented the country in international competitions.
In 2021, with the return of the Taliban and the ban on sports for women, her career came to an abrupt halt: she was stranded for months in Kabul, then evacuated first to Qatar and finally to France. She arrived in Paris, joined a local club and started again from scratch. But her talent emerged immediately, she was noticed and began training regularly with the French national team. She obtained an IOC Refugee Athlete scholarship and competed in the Featherweight category, officially joining the elite athletes running for the Refugee Olympic Team. Due to an injury, she missed the call for Paris 2024, where she had aspired to “win a medal for all the women of Afghanistan”. Today Marzieh continues to compete at the highest levels in international tournaments, despite being exiled, receiving death threats and living life under escort. Both athlete and activist, in addition to her athletic excellence, she brings to the tatami mat the cry of generations of women who are struggling to break the mould and claim the right to exist and to decide their own destiny.
Marzieh Hamidi for Yalea Eyewear
With this campaign, Yalea celebrates feminine empowerment in the professional world: a clear vision where form and substance coexist, inspiring fresh perspectives. A collection that invites you to break barriers and see beyond.
The medal is personal, but the victory belongs to everyone: it’s the sensitivity with which you move through the world, one of the first things that struck us about you when we met. But let’s start from the beginning: Taekwondo was first a love, then a path to freedom, and today it is also a means of resistance. How many glass ceilings have you shattered so far?
“Let’s start with the most obvious aspects: I am a woman, born in Iran to Afghan refugees, who has made her way in a typically male sport and saw her place in the national team snatched away by the Taliban. I saved my life, I fled, I started from scratch, again as a refugee. I won an IOC Refugee Athlete scholarship and almost made the Olympic team in Paris2024. I live under escort, and so far, I’ve survived.
These are the most obvious glass ceilings I’ve shattered, just so that I can follow my talent. This part is easy to prove and make people understand. It’s what makes my story different from that of most women from countries other than Afghanistan.
Then there are the subtle prejudices, the small exclusions, the fear for safety. The continuous feeling of having to prove that I deserve to be where I am, the doubts, the fatigue, the loneliness. The fact that I am so focused on the result that I forget to really live.
These feelings, I discovered outside Afghanistan, are common to many women in every country in the world, even where there is no regime. Contexts change, but no society is truly free from prejudice or from those invisible yet deeply entrenched mechanisms that assign blame and control access to positions of power.
For this reason, yes, every medal, every competition won is personal, the result of hard work and my own personal fight. But victory, climbing high, obtaining visibility: I do this for everyone. That’s what keeps me going. Having access to microphones, to Parliaments, to the United Nations so that I can continue to demand that all the sisters I left behind in Afghanistan are not abandoned and that for every woman, everywhere, real gender equality is achieved.
As a young girl, taekwondo was my space of freedom—an escape from the Taliban and their system of gender apartheid. So yes, taekwondo has been my salvation and I, through taekwondo, want to give back a voice, dignity and hope to those whose won are not strong enough.”
Two boosters that help me reach my goal? Finding joy in small things and the right to be vulnerable
It seems a paradox, and yet Marzieh made us understand that, when you break the mould, feeling vulnerable is part of the path to get to the top: “I was so focused on my goals that I had forgotten about myself, what makes me really happy. I was focused only on withstanding very high pressure and achieving results. I didn’t even cry, I fought with myself not to cry, not to show signs of weakness. Then I realised that this is wrong: it’s okay to feel weak at times, because if you don’t experience that sense of loss, you will never really be able to rebuild yourself stronger. To continually reshape yourself, to climb one more step. When you learn to manage this, you will know how to get up again after every failure or criticism. And we can use the joy we find in small achievements as a balm for our wounds, so we must never lose sight of them.”
Balance between sacrifice, commitment, satisfaction, recognition, managing attacks, sabotage attempts: mental well-being. You have all pointed this out to us as one of the fundamental factors for advancing towards your goals, and yet too often it is still taboo. Tell us what you think…
“When you are well up here — she tells us by pointing to her head — you can do anything: mental well-being is everything. For years, I thought success was winning medals, proving something to the world. Then I realised that you can be very strong in your sector, but if you are not happy inside, if you do not recognise how you really are as a person, it is useless. There is no success without focusing on who you are and what you really fight for every day. There were times when I felt completely alone, scared, tired and I would wonder ‘Why can’t I live a normal life?’ You know, stop fighting, conform. Moments when, even more than in my life, I was afraid of losing myself and my mental clarity. Until I realised that the most important thing for me was not the sporting result, but being able to have an impact on history, being part of a change that dismantles unjust systems.
From then on, I put everything into perspective, even the fiercest attacks. So yes, it’s terribly tiring at times to keep your focus, to stay balanced, but now I know exactly what I’m fighting for. It’s a kind of awareness each person has to earn for themselves. No one can fine-tune the formula in your place, but being selective about which voices and people you value helps prevent wasting energy. In my journey, I have come to understand two things that may seem trivial but have given me great serenity and may be useful to those who read this: our worth in the world extends beyond the outcomes of our careers; and before giving in to prejudice or expectations, remember that those who resemble you will not always stand with you, and those who are different from you will not always stand in your way. We cannot control the insecurities of others, but we can control our own mental strength.”
What is the most urgent change your industry would need? And what advice would you give to young women, in any field, who are starting out in their careers, or to girls who are just beginning to dream about their future?
“Without a doubt, the most urgent change is easy to see, but still very difficult to achieve: equal pay. Because there will never be true equality as long as a man earns ten times more than a woman who does the same job, and sacrifices the same amount of her health, life, and time to do it. Saying “we let you compete” is not enough. Us having visibility in the media is not enough. We too are working, and having economic security would allow us to focus more fully on results. On this issue I obviously have a particular sensitivity for athletes in exile, who have no opportunities, no recognition, nothing. They deserve support, they deserve to be seen, they deserve to be able to really train. Only in this way will they be able to show themselves to the world for what they are already inside: champions.
To young women starting a journey, in any sector, the first thing I would say is: never betray your identity. The road is almost always difficult, because women also face an enormous load of expectations, judgments, prejudices. And if you’re not aligned with what the environment wants from you, you’re going to have to be even stronger.
We have to prepare ourselves to be mentally strong, to stay grounded, and not lose focus. And we have to accept that sometimes not achieving our goals is normal. It’s not the end of the world. Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop and take care of yourself, remember to find joy in little things, allow yourself to be weak so that you can then become stronger.
And we must not forget that millions of women before us fought through the centuries, paving the way for us to even imagine pursuing our careers today. Honouring their struggle means believing in ourselves and using success to support those who do not yet have a voice. If we believe in ourselves, if we stay true to our voice, we can turn our hard work into inspiration for other women. And that, on any level, is always a win”.
