• Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, an Indian organization, recently completed a survey on the aspirations of Muslim women. They want to “study, work, explore the world.”

• Bureaucracy in the West Bank is hindering Palestinian women’s progress.

• CNN profiles female Omani entrepreneurs.

• Six Saudi sisters are likely to file a lawsuit against their father for not allowing them to get married.

• Libya’s new nationality law grants women married to foreign spouses the right to pass their own nationality to their children.

• ILLUME profiles fashion designer Samira Atash.

• Carla Bruni doesn’t want Sakineh Ashtiani to be stoned, and so an Iranian newspaper calls her prostitute. Uh…

• Saudi Gazette reviews Na’ima B. Roberts’ book From My Sisters’ Lips.

• Watford Muslim Women’s organization raises £11,500 for Pakistan floods.

• On the latest hijab styles from the Gulf.

• John Esposito writes about Muslim women’s rights in predominately Muslim countries.

• Quick! Go get your surprised face! Abercrombie & Fitch is being sued over a hijab…again!

• Saudi Arabia has banned Moroccan women of a certain age from the umra pilgrimage.

• Newsweek profiles great female artists in Pakistan.

• How women adapt to Ramadan in Tanzania.

• Blood tests have confirmed that a mysterious series of cases of mass sickness at girls’ schools across the country over the last two years were caused by a powerful poison gas. May Allah keep them and give them justice.

• Hey! I wrote an article! For CNN! About media obsession with Muslim women’s appearances.

• A Taiwanese garment factory owner was sentenced to six months in jail for forcing three Muslim women on her staff to eat pork.

• In Nigeria, Islamic officials are debating about niqab.

• More on the Disneyland headscarf fiasco.

• ILLUME profiles Afghanistan’s Women’s National Boxing Team and the increasing role of women in Youth Olympics.

• The Norwegian Equality Tribunal ruled a ban on Norwegian female police officers wearing Islamic headscarves is illegal. More from The Sydney Morning Herald.

• Because many salons in the Gulf have male hairdressers, some women avoid the salon during Ramadan.

• At Salon, Judy Mandelbaum looks at how the Pakistan floods are affecting women.

• The lives of four Arab-Israeli women spanning three generations against the backdrop of conflict are at the center of Miral, a film based on Rula Jebreal’s book.

• “Headscarf and the Angry Bitch” is the best name of a play ever.

• An Australian Muslim woman who sought permission to keep her face and head covered while she gives evidence at an upcoming trial was told by a judge she would have to remove her veil.

• CNN interviews Tayyibah Taylor about Azizah magazine.

• Bab Rizq Jameel has launched an employment center for women in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Related: another store in Saudi Arabia has started employing female cashiers.

• An interesting road to economic empowerment: In a Turkish city, men get salary incentives or penalties for how they treat their female family members.

• The bodies of five male volunteers working for a female MP have been found riddled with bullets in western Afghanistan. May Allah give them peace and justice.

• Women rights activists in Jordan are trying to overturn a legal clause which allows girls as young as 15 to be married off.

• An Israeli soldier who murdered a Palestinian girl has been acquitted. May Allah give her justice.

• The Global Post examines transsexual brothels in Turkey.

• Egypt cracks down on female genital mutilations.

• A Kurdish community in Turkey launches an LGBT magazine.

If we’ve missed any news stories about Muslim women from this week, feel free to post links in the comments!

Riz Khan of Al Jazeera seems to be cognizant of the sensationalistic effects of the image. In a recent episode of his self-titled show, he addresses “Women’s Rights in Afghanistan.” Khan discusses the Time image as well as whether the foreign military presence in Afghanistan is helping or hurting Afghan women.

Viewers are introduced to Khan’s two guests: Wazhma Frogh and Gayle Lemmon. Wazhma Frogh is an Afghan activist who received the U.S. State Department’s 2009 International Woman of Courage Award for her work on human rights in Afghanistan.

Also there to weigh in was American author Gayle Lemmon, who has written a book on Afghanistan titled: The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, which tells the story of an Afghan girl whose business created jobs for more than 100 women in Kabul during the Taliban years.

The first half of the show discusses the Time cover image as Riz Khan poses the question of whether the picture hurts the image of Afghan women. Frogh believes that

“By showing images as such we actually detach the social realities that deteriorate the situation of Afghan women on the ground; we actually remove the situation of Afghan woman from a social perspective [and] from a governance perspective. The more accountability is fading from Afghanistan, the more we see that such acts are happening so I don’t know how much it can help. It might help one person to get her out of Afghanistan, but what happens to the hundreds of Afghan women who go through the same or worse situation on a daily basis.”

Then, the much debated question of whether U.S. military occupation is helping or hurting Afghan women is posed. Lemmon expresses the idea that the American public must come to terms with the fact that there is a pressing need for U.S. presence in Afghanistan as a means for our security. She reminds viewers that it was not the plight of Afghan women that lead to the invasion but, it was instead, the result of 9/11.

However, I recall that this wasn’t the requiem trumpeted by Laura Bush shortly after the occupation, when she began spouting Western Feminist rhetoric, lamenting the forced wearing of burqas and the prohibition of nail polish by the Taliban.

In fact, a few months after the invasion, in his 2002 State of the Union address, Bush announced, “The last time we met in this chamber, the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school. Today women are free and are part of Afghanistan’s new government.”

Maybe the warmongering seemed justified and continued military presence seems justified if people believe that women are being rescued from oppression because of it?

In Lemmon’s opinion, troops cannot bring Afghan women equality, but U.S. presence creates a safe space where women can begin to help themselves? I guess she missed the recent news of U.S. soldiers digging bullets out of women’s bodies and then stabbing them to cover up civilian deaths as a result of an American Special Operations assault gone bad.

Frogh, in contrast, says that the presence of international troops is helping the stability of the country to some extent, but it does not translate into women’s rights being improved. She says that tying the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan to the state of women in Afghanistan is a big mistake. For her, it is not as easy as posing women’s rights vs. foreign presence. This rhetoric, which has framed the debate on Afghan women, needs to be deconstructed.

Frogh also notes that we must distinguish between rural and urban areas with respect to how women are treated. The achievements and progression made in the past nine years of occupation are focused mainly on urban women, who are easily reached and helped. While, women in the rural areas are not getting education, literacy rates are plummeting and their situation is worsening, as they continue to be subject to a masculine interpretation of religion.

One thing that Riz Khan’s program brought to light is that the damage done to women’s rights is not just a result of Taliban rule nor is it just a result of occupation. The problems have preceded both the Taliban’s rule and U.S. occupation and thus cannot be expected to be solved in just nine years of occupation. What is clear is that neither the Taliban’s supposed “religious” rule, nor the occupational force’s supposed “saving” tactics have provided both rural and urban Afghan women with the stability and infrastructure necessary to improve their situation.

But tonight was a little different: it was a program that provided the panacea to what I’ve been railing against since the talks about the French burqa ban exploded in the media. Finally, a whole segment—a brief but precious 152 minutes—on prime time British television was dedicated to only women in hijab and niqab talking about their sartorial choices and views about their British identity. No self-righteous, media-hogging commentators or “experts” were in sight. This was a rare occasion!

Women in niqab have appeared on British television numerous times, but usually in a situation where they are embroiled in a heated debate surrounded by detractors who were often white and male, or Muslim liberals who have little patience for other Muslims who do not fit some absurd model minority mould (Taj Hargey and Yasmin Alibhai Brown, I’m talking to you). Tonight’s program featured three British women, three out of four in niqab, and no one else talking over their heads.

The segment was, however, structured to be a story with two halves. On one side of the debate, three young British women, Rumaysa, Sara, and Ruman, chose to veil their faces, and on the other, one woman, Khola, who had previously done so but currently wears the headscarf. She is against the niqab.

They spoke about their concern for their safety in public spaces, an issue that grabs my heart, even as a hijab-less woman. Any kind of harassment against women—be it sexist, racist, or Islamophobic—is an attack on all women. But the main reason these women were on television is to explain the growing trend of British-born women who take up the niqab.

Debates about Muslim women’s hijab have been rejuvenated following proposals for new British laws to mimic those in France and Belgium. Similar re-assessments about identity and citizenship seem to fuel debates behind the ban, and I was pleased that the women on Newsnight went straight for the jugular of the issue, asserting their British-ness and even their Western-ness.

It shouldn’t be a big deal, calling yourself British or Western. You can have a passport to prove it. But identity can be a tricky beast. It’s tricky when you’re surrounded by people who want to define you and deny your selfhood. Identity is so precious, especially for people in power, who want sole control in determining who’s “in” and who’s “out,” using the language of identity, values, rights, and citizenship, as if they own it.

This has boiled down to whether the niqab (or hijab) is part of British identity and in line with British values. The answer to this should be left to open-ended interpretation, and something a person should be free and confident to define for herself. The women make it a point to say that their mothers do not cover their faces, and that the break with their parent’s generation and religious expectations is part of their process of carving out a uniquely British identity.

Behind the “why” in the question why women choose to cover their faces is a direction towards a potentially productive conversation about gender and clothing. If the non-Muslim British society at large can understand why certain women need to conceal their hair, face, and other parts of their body, then maybe certain irrational, racist, Islamophobic fears can finally be laid to rest.

But to argue that women’s choices in clothes are no one’s business but the wearer’s is to deny the position of society in helping a woman make that choice. Rumaysa, one of the women on the program, argues that by covering her face, her voice becomes the defining element of her identity. But more importantly, it helps her achieve a higher level of spirituality.

Her arguments make perfect sense, but I then wondered why these avenues for spirituality and identity are for women only. Men do not retreat from the world on a daily basis in a niqab or insist on being defined by his voice, thoughts, and ideas rather than the way he looks. These questions will be met with a variety of responses, most I figure will say I’m being a ridiculous, but such responses will certainly point towards the way society works and how that is implicated in why men do not wear the niqab.

By the end of the program, I felt happy that the attention concerning the niqab is taken away from right- and left-wing pundits for once, but I can only be sure that this is only momentarily. Before long they will make noise again, wondering aloud why women should cover their faces.

While the show does deal with important issues like wife neglect/abuse and teen problems, it is severely stereotypical of Muslim women in a number of aspects.

The issue of women praying in mosques is used as a scapegoat for one teenager’s nightly escapades. This stance is corroborated in the drama by claims that allowing women in mosques would provide them with “a smokescreen to conduct their nefarious activities,” as a friend put it.

The constant references to women and young girls using the pretext of attending the mosque to perform their prayers but then engaging in dubious activities is extremely problematic in a community where the notion of women’s attendance at the mosque is thought of as evil and prohibited. This severely undermines the struggles of many Muslim women for integration into their communities via the mosque.

“Redemption Road” represents women in a many other negative lights. Women who leave home to work and study abroad are portrayed as “up to no good.” Wives are are either nagging/incessantly obedient/suspicious, and daughters are wayward.

I understand that the drama is a work of fiction, and a good depiction of South African Indian Muslim community at that. I also admit that some of the incidents may very well happen in real life. But it still perpetuates the stereotype that women in mosques can only lead to trouble, and that no good can come out of their participation in sacred spaces. The drama also presupposes that all listeners agree with the particular Islamic school of law in South Africa that bars female participation in the mosque.

Let me reiterate that there are many positive aspects of the “Redemption Road,” especially in its exploration of relationships, organizational politics and especially for driving home the message that women are not duty-bound to the kitchen, especially in Ramadan.

However, it is important to realize how even subtle jabs at certain actions (like women attending mosques) ostracize women who fight hard for this very Islamic right and subconsciously cement existing misconceptions.  Perhaps the “Redemption Road” could have balanced this bad representation with a positive one, with women who are active and in mosque participation and the better for it.

More surprising, however, is the fact that many well-known websites published his article with little or no analysis. Websites such as News 1130, National Public Radio, the Huffington Post, Yahoo Finance, CBS News, the Raw Story, among others, have republished El-Tablawy’s article. Many of the comments posted in the different websites show that a large number of readers agree on the fact that now Iraq is free because pornography can be found in the streets.

The article presents many problems. With the American troops coming back to the United States, some critics consider it odd that El-Tablawy seems to imply that the invasion, the dead, and all the efforts were for one sole purpose: to sexually liberate Iraqi society. As the New York News & Features explains, if pornography is a reflection of security and stability, then the American troops have nothing else to do in Iraq. On the other hand, although some people believe that democracy in the country is not strong enough, the Sun claims that now Iraq is a better place to live and an expression of the country’s new lifestyle is the availability of pornography.

How is pornography a sign of political stability and freedom? Pornography has existed for centuries and it has been available in most countries, whether legally or illegally.  However, people do not usually affirm or question a country’s stability or freedom based on the availability of pornographic materials.

Even though bloggers such as Costarikker feel that Americans are always blamed for everything happening in the Middle East, the appearance of pornography cannot be blamed on them. Nonetheless, the popularity of El-Tablawy’s article in the West not only legitimizes a discourse of “us” vs. “them” by scrutinizing their pornography consumption without also examining ours, but also emphasizes a very Westernized idea of freedom and political stability.

People who support the appearance and legitimization of pornography in Iraq forget that pornography is still a big issue in the West. Furthermore, in societies where pornography has been stigmatized and condemned, religious authorities tend to react badly. This is not unique of the Muslim world. In some Latin American countries, pornography is still illegal and the Church still has the power to oversee and ban the entrance of ‘inappropriate’ materials into certain countries.

In addition, as the Financial Times reports there are still big issues in Iraq that show that the country is far from being secure, democratic and free. Political, religious and ethnic sectarianisms are still present in the region, and democracy was imposed through a war of intervention, which makes it weak. Most Iraqis lack access to quality welfare services and unemployment is still a big concern.  Nowadays, discussions on pornography overlap with religious fanaticism, political instability, and 50,000 American soldiers staying in the territory to oversee the establishment of democracy in the country.

While the Iraqi government and the Americans focus on dealing with terrorism, they do not realize that, after all what Iraq has gone through in the last 10 years, the availability of pornography in the streets may be one more reason for extremists to react against what they believe is the “Westernization” of the country. While many people may think that the availability of pornography is a step forward toward “development,” this is a very Westernized assumption in the sense that it is commonly conceived that everyone goes through the same developmental process and ends up being like the West. Therefore, according to El-Tablawy’s thesis, Iraq would be a “backward” country that “oppresses” people sexually for not letting them enjoy the wonders of pornography.

Most striking is the little female involvement in this discussion. Aside from Jezebel, which does a long analysis on the presence of Arab and Latin American girls in pornography materials available in Iraq, none of the websites mentioned the impact that this may have on the female population, especially considering the skyrocketing rates of prostitution and sex trafficking that have resulted from the Iraq War.

Pornography has served many purposes in most societies; however, one of the most important ones is the over-sexualization of the female image. Whereas some people may argue that pornography is an expression of female sexual liberation, this thesis has been twisted from a feminist Western discourse and has been misused to imply that all women should feel proud of being able to be represented in such an industry as pornography. However, we forget that even in the West women still face challenges. Although this cannot be blamed on pornography alone, it is this representation of women as only-sexual beings that has allowed society to exclude women from many aspects of public life.

In the Iraqi context, Jezebel clearly shows how Arab women in pornographic films have been exoticized. It seems to be that for the male audience, Arab women are portrayed as “forbidden fruit:” off-limits and therefore, very attractive. In addition, the author reports on the even bigger appeal for veiled girls in pornography movies. This is particularly interesting, since one of the main arguments for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was the liberation of women from oppressing regimes that forced them to wear veils and stay at home. Have they liberated them? Or just taken off their panties while keeping the veil?

Is all this to liberate women from religious oppressive regimes and to oppress them with other types of patriarchal systems? Is pornography our liberator?

The government’s refusal to give any kind of response to the pornography issue shows that women are not a priority in their agenda. First, women were one of the backup excuses to invade the country. Then, women are usually the main targets of extremist religious groups, which tend to emphasize the dangers of female liberation. In a country where the government seems quite concerned with stopping terrorism, people should realize that the availability of pornography in the streets will only provoke more radical reactions and female oppression. Moreover, the government may be legitimizing a practice that will have a long lasting effect on women’s role in public life and in politics and may ban them altogether from these fields by not responding to the issue.

Whether pornography is morally “good” or “bad,” its availability may be alienating more than a few Iraqis and even Americans. Were all the lives lost for the sake of Iraqis’ sexual liberation? Is this so-called sexual liberation a reflection of freedom of political stability? El-Tablawy thinks it is, but his polemical thesis is only good for controversy, not Iraqi women.

Today is Muslimah Media Watch’s third anniversary! On this day, waaaay back in 2007, we first appeared in the blogosphere!

On our third anniversary, we’ve got something new for you: you’ll notice there is now a “Like” button for Facebook and a sharing button for Twitter at the bottom of each of our posts. Take ‘em for a test drive!

We wouldn’t still be here today without your support as readers and friends. Thank you so much for all of your tips, lively discussion in the comments, and your support!

• How the the Pakistan floods disproportionately affect women.

• A Muslim woman who sued Disney for refusing to let her wear a  headscarf at her job at Disneyland says she has been suspended without pay for turning down the company’s alternatives. More from her lawyer.

• The BBC reports that cases of FGM in London are increasing. Meanwhile, women who have undergone FGM seek out a doctor in Colorado for reconstructive surgery.

• Both Indonesia and Jerusalem introduce women-only trains.

• Saudi Arabia has appointed 300 female officials to cope with the increasing number of female pilgrims and visitors to the Grand Mosque in Ramadan.

• Iran’s most recent Family Protection Bill is met with resistance.

• The Grand Mufti of Dubai has called for restrictions on Emiratis marrying outside their nationality.

• A Saudi preacher hates on female cashiers.

• A 16-year-old Kurdish girl has disappeared and is thought to have been murdered.

• Dozens of schoolgirls and teachers were sickened by poison gas piped into their high school in Afghanistan. May Allah keep them and give them justice.

• Kuwait has proposed increasing marriage grants.

• How underage marriage effects Yemeni women and girls medically.

• Shirin Ebadi writes for The Progressive about the female face of Iranian resistance.

• How settling with the Taliban will affect Afghan women. More from Common Ground News and CBS News.

• AlterNet looks at how rampant sex trafficking is affecting Iraqi women, despite the U.S. commitment to end it.

• A British woman creates a halal makeup line and hopes its appeal will extend past Muslims.

• France’s burqa ban has nothing to do with female emancipation.

• A Bangladesh court says women should not be forced to wear burqas at educational institutes.

• Amina Wadud talks about the politics and interpretation of hijab.

• Human Rights Watch says that Russia should put an end to local rules forcing women in Chechnya to observe an Islamic dress code.

• The Christian Science Monitor profiles Daisy Khan.

• How Ramadan cuts into salon visits in the Gulf.

• The New York Times looks at stoning.

• On burqa fashion in Mumbai.

If we’ve missed any news about Muslim women this week, feel free to post links in the comments!

Blackberry has become very popular among single young people, who use it as a way to connect with men or women in a society where gender segregation is strictly imposed. Although negotiations continue between Blackberry and the government, the government itself is “modernizing” its control tactics.

The Global Voices Blog has recently reported that the Saudi government is currently using a system that informs male guardians whenever a woman, who is their dependant, has traveled outside the country. Wajeha Al Huwaider, a women’s rights activist, was the first one to alert the media about this system, on which the Saudi government has refused to comment.

Eman Al Nafjan, a female Saudi blogger whose husband received a text when she recently left the country, explains how the system works: with the new tracking system, men may sign up for an online service which allows them to receive SMS notifications that let them know once a woman has left the country. A third party related to the government provides the service. As Malik reports in her article, it is not clear what the exact purpose of this measure is, since women who leave the country have already gotten permission from their guardians.

Al Huwaider affirms that, in Saudi Arabia, technology is being misused to oppress women. In addition, Nadya Khalife and Reem Asaad comment, that in addition to the difficulties presented to women who want to travel, this new application represents a threat to women’s freedom of mobility.

It’s not just women who are being tracked, however. Arab News reports that the service allows sponsors to be informed if a worker, who is under their responsibility, has “escaped” or acquired another profession. While some people find it useful in terms of their legal responsibility, others affirm that this will prevent workers to receive help in cases of abuse, especially towards domestic workers, such as maids.

An interesting thing is the fact that some people neither support nor reject the initiative, but instead they complain about the lack of response from Muslim activist groups. A woman explains that if the West had done the same to Muslim women, Muslim activists would have been protesting and complaining about Islamophobia. Although the service is not strange for those who know that women normally depend on their male relatives to perform daily activities in Saudi Arabia, women around the globe mocked and complained about the Saudi system.

However, Dr. Edit Schalaffer, who has performed extensive research on gender issues in the Kingdom, thinks that even though many people are tired of such restrictions, international pressure won’t help. Instead, she suggests, Saudi society should be encouraged to allow change to happen.

In a country where Qur’anic interpretation follows a very strict path, where the clergy has great political power and the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice looks after “proper” gender segregation and “good” female behavior, the implementation of this system may seem not so bad. However, more than a few women, and men, are having more than enough of such a control from the government.

At “On the Ground”, Kristof provides further background on his Times opinion columns and features entries from individuals that are related to subjects he frequently covers: international aid and development, global public health issues, and women’s empowerment.  Kristof also engages with his readers through addressing their questions, which range from content-related inquiries to critiques of his writing.

In a blog entry he posted last month, Kristof addresses one of his reader’s criticism regarding his portrayal of Africans as “victims” and westerners as their “saviors” in his writing: Kristof feels that by focusing on a White protagonist as a “bridge,” he receives a larger readership that generates an increased awareness and interest of the developing world (which he feels he would not receive if he were to highlight the stories of individuals who hail from the developing world itself).

Kristof does not, however, ponder what implications the use of the bridge has on his readers’ intellectual psyche—by continuing to use a paternalistic narrative to tell a story, how do readers comprehend their own understanding and relationship with the developing world?

Since February, Sher Bano, a 17-year-old Pakistani girl from Peshawar, has been writing occasionally for “On the Ground.”  She studied here in the U.S. last year as a foreign exchange student and currently writes from Pakistan.  Her three posts so far have included an introduction to life in Peshawar, arranged marriages, and Pakistan’s Facebook protests; an upcoming post will look at flooding in the area (I was hoping that it would be posted last week; current stories that reveal the impact of the flooding from a Pakistani’s perspective can be difficult to find in the mainstream media).

I was excited to see Sher Bano’s posts (which are, unfortunately, posted on a seemingly sporadic schedule) featured at “On the Ground,” as women and people of color are greatly underrepresented in media.  Kristof allows her the opportunity to tell her own story on an ongoing basis.  Sher Bano writes about what it is like to be a Pakistani girl in her first post, a universal story of how societal expectations influence how she dresses and chooses her friends:

Being a girl in Peshawar is difficult. There are many “dos and don’ts”. I always wear a shawl at home, cover my head outside the house and hide my face in the more conservative areas, like the villages. If I do not do that, people give me angry and insulting looks, including my parents. The liberal parents here want their daughters to be bold and competitive, but yet know their limits. The limits defined by my parents, for instance, are that I cannot go out alone, should dress modestly (no jeans), interact with boys only when needed and have no male friends, as it is inappropriate in our society. They made some exceptions while I was in Evanston or else it would have been very hard for me to adjust there.

In her second post, she writes about what an arranged marriage in Pakistan entails:

The usual custom is that the boy’s parents ask for the girl’s hand whom they and their son find suitable. If the girl’s family finds the boy as fulfilling all the important considerations for their daughter, such as having a good livelihood etc, they will then ask for their daughter’s opinion. If she agrees, the decision is made. Yet if she vetoes it, it is time to consider someone else for her. Thus the marriage is not imposed in any way.

Her writing is straightforward, her views (she is careful to note) are her own and in no way representative of the entire culture’s.  Her stance politically is very pro-United States:

The U.S. must change Pakistanis’ negative perceptions by convincing them that the U.S. supports democracy, not dictatorship; and that the U.S. sees the current crisis as political, not religious. To achieve this, the U.S. must develop a more intimate relationship with Pakistan.

Are Sher Bano’s posts any less captivating to “On the Ground” readers due to the lack of a predominant “White savior” narrative?  Do her posts ultimately bring more attention to the region and insight to the cultural nuances that exist?

Bringing more stories from Sher Banos across the world to readers unfamiliar with a minority culture is essential to promote greater cultural familiarity and awareness; it also helps to rectify the absence of women’s viewpoints in large media outlets.  Kristof’s decision to highlight the writing of a young Muslim woman is one that deserves applause.

Last Friday, the Independent reported that poet Joumana Haddad has been called the “Carrie Bradshaw of Beirut.”

Abdel Aal's book; Dar el Shorouk cover.

Yesterday, National Public Radio said that Ghada Abdel-Aal, blogger and author of Ayza Atgowaz (now a Ramadan TV series), is “Carrie Bradshaw in a headscarf.”

I certainly don’t object to analogy: It’s how we humans structure knowledge. And, while Haddad found the characterization of her “rather inaccurate” (perhaps she would prefer “a sexy Adrienne Rich”), Abdul-Aal embraces Sex and the City while telling NPR:

“Some people call my show Sex and the City, but without the sex. It’s just the city,” she says with a hearty laugh.

(I think emphasizing her “hearty laugh” is to underline that she’s a humor writer.)

Abdel-Aal’s blog is now rarely updated, although it’s inspired other blogs and facebook groups and become a cultural phenom. And now it’s a Ramadan TV series! The book is also making its way around the world: It’s already out in Italian, and will come out in English this October from University of Texas Press.

And: While we’re on the subject, why hasn’t Rajaa Alsanea been called the “Carrie Bradshaw of Saudi Arabia”? There is apparently an Arab (American) Carrie Bradshaw, or at least she’s called that by her friends.

Although, of course, what I’d really like to hear is someone being called “the bare-headed Ghada Abdel-Aal.”