This was written by Iman al Khaddaf and originally appeared in Asharq Alawsat. Are you on Facebook under your real name? This is the question that continues to haunt a large number of Saudi Arabian women, despite the fact that internet social networking sites rely primarily on factual personal information. However, a recent study carried […]

Editor’s Note: Salam waleykum, readers! I’m traveling this week, and haven’t had much access to internet (you’ve probably noticed if you’ve tried to submit a comment…), so I haven’t been able to put together a Friday Links this week. But instead, I’ll leave you with a new face at MMW to get to know! Until […]

A recent Gulf News article entitled “Feminism in the Arab World” aims to give a picture of, well, feminism in the Arab world.  It interviews professors and students about their experiences of feminism, female leadership, and the status of women in Arab countries. While the analysis and interviews are interesting (you can go read that […]

The BBC is airing a six-episode television series, called Muslim Driving School, about Muslim women who are learning to drive. The show purports to not only follow these women as they learn, but to provide an insight into their inner lives. Muslim Driving School is billed as being about British Muslim women, but from the […]

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is Muslim. In her articles she often likes to tell you this in the first sentence to give herself an air of authenticity. Therefore, when her articles are mere fodder for the further stereotyping and othering of Muslims, it is not because she is lazily feeding the expectations of her non-Muslim readers, but […]

Christopher Dickey’s analysis of an interview with Defne Bayrak (pictured below), the wife of the Jordanian suicide bomber Humam Al-Balawi in Afghanistan, asks the wrong questions. Instead of pondering the reason why a woman of Bayrak’s intelligence would condone suicide bombing, he creates an image of women involved in al-Qaeda that made me feel like […]

Salam alaikum, readers! I’ve got quite a lot on my plate this week, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to do a slap-dash job of the Links this week. Apologies! gulfnews : Feminism in the Arab world DAWN.COM | National | Jury selected for Dr Aafia’s trial Anything for fair skin, even SR30,000 placenta […]

Tahmena Bokhari, a feminist, Muslim, Canadian, social worker, and educator, was recently crowned Mrs. Pakistan 2010 (not to be confused with Miss Pakistan World). Bokhari’s accomplishments are varied and impressive: a master’s degree in social work, a history of working at women’s shelters and other humanitarian initiatives.  She currently teaches social work at two different […]

It’s hard not to judge a book by its cover, or in this case, an article by its headline, when the first words that scream out at you are: From bikinis to burkas: A Yemeni memoir. If your first thought is, “Not again. Haven’t we been down this cliché-littered road before?” then you’re not alone. […]

Earlier this month, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a gradual introduction of body scanners into U.K. airports following the failed attack on an American airliner on Christmas Day European nations are split over the necessity of introducing the body scanners. Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom are planning to install the scanners […]