This post was written by guest contributor Nicole Hunter Mostafa (@nicolejhm). When I think about topics that are directly relevant to the lives of Muslim women, one that would probably be pretty low on my list is beauty pageants. Sure, in terms of feminist discourse, it’s not that hard to make the connection—beauty pageants’ primary […]

Last week, much of the news items dealing with Muslim women was related to Britain and the debate and issues surrounding the (face) veil. First of all, a judge ruled that a Muslim woman wearing a face veil was allowed to wear her veil in court, but must remove it when testifying, though she would […]

During Ramadan, a great uproar took place in Nigeria over actions by the government that were interpreted as trying to legalise child marriage. During a constitutional review, Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima argued that a subsection of Nigeria’s 1999 constitution should not be removed as it affects the rights of Muslim women. Section 29 of the […]

*WARNING: POSSIBLE CAVITY-INDUCING PIECE* I have a tale to tell. It’s a story about a youngish Muslimah woman of colour who happens to be a football fanatic. Synopsis: She comes across #hijabdesk-worthy Kickstarter initiative and critiques the project of two, privileged, white women working in Africa. Sounds familiar, right? You may think you know what […]

A few weeks ago, an Indonesian religious teacher triggered a debate on Twitter when he made a series of tweets regarding women. Among his tweets were: The strength of a woman is in her gentleness and maternal traits | what else could it be? | firm, strong, and fatherly? hehe.. Fyi, a pious husband loves […]

The news here in Quebec – and in many other parts of Canada – has been flooded in the past few weeks with stories about the newly-proposed Charter of Quebec Values.  Formally announced on Tuesday, September 10 (although some details had been leaked a couple weeks prior), the charter, if eventually passed as law, would […]

Sudanese woman Amira Osman Hamed faces trial on September 19 for refusing to wear a headscarf. Indian diarist and women’s rights activist Sushmita Banerjee has been killed in Afghanistan. Sushmita Banerjee was married to an Afghan man and recently moved back to Afghanistan, where she was said to be filming the lives of local women. Her book […]

I have to admit that hijab narratives in media turn me off. Whether because it is exhaustively discussed or because most of these narratives rely heavily on clichés and fallacies, hijab is a subject that seems to me overloaded with notions that are not related in any way to what I see as the core […]

This last week has seen protests in Jakarta, Medan, Surabaya and Jogjakarta over the Miss World 2013 beauty pageant to be held in the next few weeks. Recently, I wrote a post about a similar debate in Malaysia where their Muslim participants were eventually dropped. The Miss World 2013 protests numbered in the thousands and […]

FRONTLINE is one of my favorite shows to watch on television. Their documentaries are thoughtful and available to watch indefinitely online in the United States. In addition to airing documentaries, they have a fantastic online presence and provide additional commentary, interviews, and chats for each of their shows to further engage with viewers. I watched […]