This was originally published at Migrant Rights. On April 10th, Kuwait’s Arab Times reported about the rape and kidnapping of an unnamed Indonesian maid by a police officer. This report is an appalling example of the regional papers’ disregard to migrant and women’s rights. Kuwaiti press in general (except for Ben Garcia, a staff reporter […]

This was written by Azmat Khan and originally published at AltMuslimah. After years of critique from local female activists, why did one of the most powerful media platforms for women’s empowerment, Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast, preclude the more meaningful ways to understand the complex lives of women in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Their recent summit […]

This was written by Thea Lim and originally appeared at Racialicious. We are late on picking up the story of Nazia Quazi, a Canadian woman being held against her will in Saudi Arabia. The Coast recently ran an interview with Quazi, explaining her situation: A Canadian woman being held against her will in Saudi Arabia […]

This was written by Özlem Sensoy and Elizabeth Marshall, and originally appeared in Rethinking Schools Online. Part I & Part II ran earlier this week. Learning a Stereotype Lesson #3: Muslim Girls and Women Want To Be Saved by the West For many in the West, the plight of Afghanistan is framed exclusively within a […]

This was written by Özlem Sensoy and Elizabeth Marshall, and originally appeared in Rethinking Schools Online. You can read Part I here. Learning a Stereotype Lesson #2: Veiled = Oppressed Gendered violence in Middle Eastern countries, or the threat of it, organizes many of the books’ plots. With few exceptions, the “good” civilized men in […]

This was written by Özlem Sensoy and Elizabeth Marshall, and originally appeared at Rethinking Schools Online. Does popular young adult fiction about Muslim girls build understanding or reinforce stereotypes? Young adult titles that focus on the lives of Muslim girls in the Middle East, written predominantly by white women, have appeared in increasing numbers since […]

This is an edited version of an article published at Café Pyala. You can read the article in its entirety at their website. Oh, shoot. Here we go again with coverage of Fashion Week in Pakistan. Can we do anything in Pakistan without it being linked in some way to either appeasing the Taliban or […]

This was written by M. Lynx Qualey and originally appeared at Arabic Literature (In English). After all the kerfuffle about how many Arabic Booker nominees use the girls’ room instead of the boys’ (and how this is proof of literary discrimination), I appreciate Syrian author Abeer Esber, writing on Qantara: “In my view, this gender […]

Abdul Malik Mujahid, a prominent imam and community activist in the Chicago area, has written a 9-point plan for ordinary muslims (based on a khutbah he will deliver today) to take concrete steps against domestic violence. I am reprinting the document in its entirety with permission: 1. Organize “In Memory of Aasiya: Domestic Violence Awareness […]

This was written by Mandy van Deven and originally appeared at Bitch magazine. Since her 2007 album Dans ma Bulle (Inside My Bubble) debuted at the top of the charts by selling 50K copies in its first week, Diam’s has become the hottest emcee in France. Not the hottest female emcee, but the hottest emcee […]