This was written by Mandy van Deven and originally appeared at Bitch Magazine. Poster 4 Tomorrow is a project based out of France that was founded this year to encourage artists to advocate “on behalf of those who don’t enjoy the same freedom of expression that you do” by designing posters that pronounce an explicitly […]

September 11, 2001 was different for everybody. But it’s safe to say that U.S. Muslims bore a significant burden. As soon as it was announced that the hijackers were Arab and Muslim, it seemed we’d inevitably be associated with the hereto-unpronounced “tribe.” After all, wasn’t that how America thought of us anyway? In her book […]

Disclaimer: The purpose of this post is not to side with either the government or the opposition of Iran, but to analyze the use of gender in a recent campaign. Being a woman is considered so shameful that if you are an outspoken male opposition supporter in Iran, the press will release a picture of […]

Recently, The Christian Science Monitor published a series of articles centered around the hijab. While I appreciated the valiant effort to offer some insight into the discourse around the hijab and the lives of Muslim women, it ultimately left me frustrated. The articles treat the headscarf as the heart of women’s issues in Islam. Centering […]

The CBC Radio show C’est la vie, an English-language show about “life in French-speaking Canada,” recently interviewed Natasha Ivisic, a woman from the Montreal area who has produced a documentary called Je porte le voile, or “I wear the veil.”  The podcast of the show can be found here (look for the November 29, 2009 […]

It’s been a little while since we last discussed Little Mosque on the Prairie, a Canadian television sitcom about a Muslim community in a small (fictional) town.  We’ve written before about its handling of the question of separate mosque entrances for men and women; the character of Sarah, a white Muslim woman; an interview with […]

Reading Marnia Lazreg’s new book Questioning the Veil (Princeton University Press, 2009) was at the same time a useful and annoying experience. The book is useful because it compiles every single argument that has already been brought against women wearing the veil, from the stupidest arguments (i.e, it prevents women from “the coquettish desire” of […]

Today is Pink Hijab Day, a day to encourage awareness of breast cancer in conjunction with National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October.  Pink Hijab Day was founded in 2007 by a group of Muslim women from Missouri who wanted to promote Islam and breast cancer awareness at their high school.  In the couple of […]

A thin square of shiny polyester is the main player in Atiha Sen Gupta’s play, What Fatima Did. The plot focuses upon the sudden decision of a non-religious young woman to wear hijab. An insightful and funny look into the reaction of those around her, the play asked some very good questions about identity, religion, […]

Two constitutional court cases in Kuwait raise questions of a paradigm shift in women’s rights.