This story was written by M. Lynx Qualey and originally appeared at Arabic Literature (in English). Al Jazeera reports that the cultural pages of Gulf newspapers are brimming with talk about sex. Or, rather, they’re brimming with talk about talk about sex. This is because sex has been a growing phenomenon in Saudi literature. Earlier […]

Al Jazeera recently aired a piece titled Lebanon’s Women Warriors, which features the testimonies and stories of eight women who fought against occupying forces from 1975-1990 in Lebanon. The film offers a unique perspective: it shows the role women played in the war, the unconventional weapons they used, and ways they fought. Perhaps the most […]

When Doha had to jump out of her cab three times after being assaulted by the drivers in broad daylight, she knew she had to do something about it. So she has joined a growing number of women in Lebanon who speak out against sexual harassment. A local non-government organization, IndyACT, supported a national campaign […]

Anyone who’s heard of Jessica Simpson knows that she’s not portrayed in the best manner when it comes to the media. Criticisms about her weight and failed relationships are constantly on top of entertainment news. For this reason, Jessica Simpson now has her own show on VH1, called The Price of Beauty, where she travels […]

“I got married secretly in a mosque,” says Elisabeth Elhazza. Her words are the title of an article in Tara, a Swedish women’s magazine, which gives an account of Elisabeth’s marriage to “seven years younger Khairi Elhazza from Libya,” how he proposed, and how “Elisabeth said yes without hesitation and stepped into what was, for […]

Yesterday, we introduced you to Telemundo’s El Clon, its premise, and two of its prominent female characters. Today, we’ll look at two more female characters, some of their male counterparts, and examine how the telenovela uses the Qur’an. Zoraida is the maid in Uncle Ali’s house. She is responsible for protecting Latiffa and Jade, and […]

Spanish soap operas (telenovelas) are just like any other serial dramas, with all the conventional characteristics: star -crossed lovers, dramatic music, a flair for the outrageous and a seemingly never-ending plot. This is exactly what can be expected from Telemundo’s telenovela, El Clon (The Clone). A remake of a Brazilian soap opera that aired in […]

The Quebec niqab thing keeps going and going (ugh), and I’m still avoiding talking about media coverage of the issue head-on, mostly because I think I’ll explode if I think more about the absurdity of it all, and I’ve written on niqab so much already that there’s not a lot else to say.  This post at […]

The BBC documentary Women, Weddings, War and Me follows 21-year-old British Afghan Nel Hedayat (pictured below) as she returns to Afghanistan 15 years after she and her family left. The accompanying article was my first exposure to Hedayat’s experience there, and it provides a different perspective than the documentary did. The article came across as […]

I’d like to give it up to Hissa Hilal, a Saudi woman who’s caused some controversy for slamming Islamic extremists in an American Idol spinoff called Million’s Poet. Instead of singing, contestants are judged based on how well they recite poems in front of a live audience; a panel of judges, along with thousands of […]