This is what happens when you paint niqabs and the women who wear them as evil. Cultural issues keep Arab-American women away from health care. Iran has sentenced in absentia award-winning women’s rights activist Shadi Sadr. A Saudi woman gives a morality officer a taste of his own medicine. More here. Miss USA link dump! […]

At the end of April, on the Swiss German-language television show Arena, one of the “rising stars” of the “Muslim scene” in Switzerland, convert Nicholas Abdullah Blancho, was present. With Blancho was an acolyte in his CCIS/IZRS (Conseil central islamique suisse/Islamisches Zentralrats Schweiz) organization, a certain young Swiss convert of Kurdish Alevi origin named Ferah […]

Rima Fakih, an Arab Muslim immigrant, won the Miss USA Pageant Sunday night: She beat out four blondes and set off a whirlwind of media coverage stemming from her “stripper” past to her Shi’a background. On the positive side, one idealist commenter compared her to Barack Obama. Another went so far as to say her […]

Today is the Day of Action on Quebec’s Bill 94, which I wrote about last week. In honor of this, I wanted to share a video of a community dialogue on the bill, which took place in Toronto in early May.  It was a really impressive event, with a very engaging panel and over 150 people […]

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 […]

Joseph Mayton writes about how women in the Middle East are used as scapegoats. The American Academy of Pediatrics has rewritten their policy on female genital cutting to allow a “ritual nick.” Uh… Doctors defend their position here. About 40 women competed in a rare track meet in Hamas-ruled Gaza. In Saudi Arabia, the Ministry […]

The provincial legislature of Quebec, Canada, is currently considering a bill that would refuse key social services to anyone wearing a face covering if made into law.  Political discussions around this bill have made it clear that the law specifically targets women who wear niqab, a face veil worn by some Muslim women. As Muslim […]

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 […]

For those familiar with women’s “lifestyle” magazines, the call to be “sexy” in some way or another is not new. We women need to have “sexy” everything: attitude, legs, skin, armpits, you name it. So pervasive is this message that I’m surprised that no one has spontaneously combusted from sexual arousal at the sight of […]

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 […]