Friday Links — January 1, 2010

Happy (Gregorian) New Year, readers! Here’s to another year together!

• A recent Cairo conference suggests that the sexual harassment of women is becoming a pan-Arab phenomenon, according to Al Ahram.

• Iran has barred single women from working for a state firm that operates a huge gas field and petrochemical plants on the shores of the Gulf.

• Hurriyet Daily News reports that the former director of Boğaziçi University blames women for the lack of women in administrative roles. Uh…

• The National profiles Sheikha Mozah as one of the people of the decade.

• Ziba Mir-Hosseini discusses gender taboos that have been broken in post-election Iran. Via Iran Unfiltered.

• Hijabtrendz interviews Hanan Turk.

• A German court imprisoned a Kurdish man for life for ordering the “honor killing” of his own daughter after being told she had lost her virginity. Via Islam in Europe. More here.

• The Iranian government has detained Shirin Ebadi’s sister in an attempt to stop her work.

• In the Netherlands, a doctor turned away a woman because she wore a niqab. The doctor later apologized.

• Bikya Masr interviews Ahdaf Soueif.

• The Christian Science Monitor reports that Palestinian women are increasingly turning to skin-whitening creams.

• Bangladesh has a huge potential for sending women workers abroad if they are provided proper training, according to The New Nation. This is good news…until you realize that “abroad” = Gulf countries, which are notorious for domestic worker abuse.
  

• Iraqi women struggle to find work.

• According to Today’s Zaman, women managers constitute 22.8% of the total top-level administrative staff of Turkey’s large private sector corporations.

• Tulay Goren’s case marked the first time that prosecutors called on expert witnesses in an honor crime trial.

• Bikya Masr gives us a brief history of modern sexual harassment in Egypt.

• A campaign is being stepped up to ensure that women in Bahrain emerge from divorce with alimony, rightful custody of their children and a roof over their heads.

• Elan looks at the Miss Palestine beauty contest.

• The Muslim community in Dresden, Germany, will build a mosque to honor Marwa El Sherbini.

• Gulf Weekly reports that Bahraini women still model themselves after women in Hollywood. Like everyone else in the world…

• Organic Muslimah writes about Muslim dating in two parts.

• Gothenberg University’s new dress code raises questions about whether it’s aimed specifically at Muslims.

• Elan looks at the polgamy brouhaha brought about by Nadine Al Bedair’s article.

• On unmarried women in Egypt.

• A Muslim woman is claiming in a federal lawsuit that she was dismissed from the Atlanta Police Department’s civilian honor guard because she refused to remove her headscarf.

• Gaza-based Palestinian Women’s Information and Media Center reports that 77% of Gazan women face violence of some kind.
  

• Are there really “no good Muslim women”?

• ThisDay looks at why maternal mortality is so high in parts of Nigeria.

• Sixty-four percent of women in Jammu and Kashmir believe it is justified for a husband to beat his wife.

• Macleans believes they’ve figured out why Egyptian women like niqab.

• A state-level consultation of Muslim organizations in India has urged the Government to frame rural employment schemes that would benefit Muslim women also work from their home.

• Daniel Pipes overreacts to hijab. Surprise.

• Maryam Babangida dies of ovarian cancer. May Allah give her peace.

Tags: Muslim women, News

Friday Links