On June 17th, women in Saudi Arabia plan to take to the streets—they’re going to get behind the wheel to protest a religious edict forbidding them to drive. As Eman wrote in a post about the Women2Drive campaign yesterday, Manal Al-Sharif posted a Youtube video of herself calling on all women to drive their automobiles […]

Last week, Manal Al-Sharif was arrested because she posted a video of herself driving around Alkhobar, Saudi Arabia, on YouTube. Because it is illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia, both she and her brother were detained. Al-Sharif has since been released, having pledged to take no further part in the Women2Drive campaign. The Women2Drive […]

Amina Abdullah is being celebrated as the unlikely voice of Syria’s revolution. She is a 35-year-old Syrian-American woman living in Damascus. On her blog, she writes candidly about her life as a lesbian in Syria. She garnered international attention after a post describing how her father was in an altercation with the state police. Abdullah’s […]

Arab women’s participation in political resistance isn’t a new thing, mkay? Britain’s first female Muslim Lord Mayor has taken up the historic post in the city of Bradford. More here.  Middle East Online looks at other kick-ass British Muslim woman creating positive changes in their communities. Shaista Aziz asks whether “halal” speed-dating can work. Arab […]

This was written by Kevin Healey and originally published on the USC blog Trans/Missions. Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s religious identity has made news since 1991, when the Jewish Tribune reported that each morning he asks himself how he can be “helpful to the state of Israel.” He should have refuted the quote, he says, since it has […]

There was something quite exciting about this year’s Arab Media Forum (AMF), which recently concluded in Dubai and was attended by over 2,000 media leaders from around the region. This year marked the tenth anniversary of the forum, which has served as an annual platform for debating Arab media issues and concerns for the past […]

Earlier this month, Ms. Magazine ran an article that looked at breast cancer stigma in Saudi Arabia.  The article provides breast cancer statistics in Saudi Arabia (without citation or link), breast cancer statistics in the United States, and American expat Carol Fleming’s experience with breast cancer in Saudi Arabia. Fleming suggests that promoting pink products […]

The head of the IMF sexually assaulted a Muslim woman working at his hotel. Laila Lalami speaks eloquently on the subject. Female entrepreneurs are helping Bangladesh shake off a “Least Developed Country” label. A Saudi Arabian student in the U.S. is arrested for assaulting people at a Wal-Mart. A young Australian artist is profiled for […]

The Atlantic featured this picture on its latest magazine, which includes an article about the Arab Spring and the future of democracy in the region. The article does talk briefly about women’s rights in the region, but it seems hardly fitting that there should be a woman wearing niqab on the cover with the fearmongering […]

Though one expects a whopping media event like the death of Osama Bin Laden to produce speculative stories on an industrial scale, it is to be hoped that the speculation is at least based in reality. Blogs engage in wild speculation, but serious media blogs are still behooved to be based on facts; otherwise, we […]