If you think that divorce brings shame and stigma squarely upon women only in conservative societies, think again. Because according to a ”news” report published in the Malaysian tabloid, Metro Ahad, celebrity divorcees are apparently the hottest thing on the market at the moment. I usually read the stuff on local tabloids with a pinch […]

I wrote a post last week on the flogging that took place in Pakistan’s Swat Valley and my thoughts on the video. This week, Randy Cohen, a columnist for The New York Times, wrote a piece on the ethics of what took place in Pakistan, as well as the recent law proposed in Afghanistan. While […]

I’m not a dog person, or a cat person, or a pet person. But I love horses, so naturally I perked up when I saw a headline about a blind Muslim woman who uses one as a guide.  Then I realized the headline specified, “Muslim woman”, and my wandering mind came back from my daydream […]

Check out Muslim Lookout for an expanded version of this post. Be prepared for some major eye-rolling in this article from the Calgary Herald.  In it, Mahfooz Kanwar praises Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney (see here for why this is a bad idea), and berates Canadians that he perceives as not having “assimilated” enough. I […]

“Sexual Abuse in Islamic Society” is the title of a recently published BBC article.* Right away, I knew it wasn’t going to be a good story (and by “good”, I mean objective, balanced, etc.). “Islamic society,” says the title, not an Islamic society, whatever that is. There is so much wrong with this BBC story […]

Krista recently did an analysis of a BBC profile of Egyptian women’s participation in mosques and saw the BBC profile as an example of how to cover Muslim women. The BBC has done another profile, this time of Gazan women dealing with domestic violence. I think the BBC has once again demonstrated how to cover […]

Covering Afghan women must be an especially hard task for many Western journalists. I say this because every piece I have read about Afghan women makes them seem like they are some of the most oppressed women in the world, with little to no hope for happiness, sans intervention by a Western savior or “Western” […]

My eyebrows raised when I read this article on IslamOnline. The article, entitled Study: Men Objectify Scantily Clad Women, used a current study conducted by well-known Princeton psychologist, Dr. Susan Fiske, to promote modest clothing. I am familiar with Dr. Fiske’s work, and I couldn’t help but question whether IslamOnline was misrepresenting the study in […]

I saw the movie Taken with my friend and her husband the other day and walked out of the theater feeling scared. It’s not a horror movie; the plot focuses on the sex trafficking of young women. The buyers are rich Arab men, of course. I wanted to be angry with the filmmakers for portraying […]

For those who don’t know, CityStars mall in Cairo was the biggest mall in the Middle East until it was surpassed by Dubai Mall in November 2008. Nevertheless, it’s still a huge mall, with (according to their website) over 550 stores, 6,000 parking spaces, three hotels, two indoor theme parks, and a 21-screen cinema complex. Over […]