This was written by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed and originally published at Comment is free. The last few weeks have been particularly eventful for Muslim women on Comment is Free. We would have felt extremely exhausted by all the excitement, were it not for the fact that – with the notable exception of Samia Rahman and […]

This was written by Amal and originally published at Improvisations: Arab Woman Progressive Voice. In Lebanese singer Nawal el Zoghbi’s latest video clip, “Albi es’alou” (ask my heart), the director wanted a really sexy man to play the singer’s love interest. Of course, there are the usual ways of sexing men in these video clips: […]

This was written by Lindsey O’Rourke, and was published in The New York Times Opinion column. We’ve republished it here because it has some very good insights about female suicide bombers and media coverage. For more insight, read Faith’s viewpoint, also published today. FOUR more Iraqi women carried out suicide bombings in Iraq this week, […]

This was written by Jehanzeb and originally appeared at his blog. This has been edited for length; you can read the entire post here. While I believe there is very little known about the images and roles of women in comic books, the subject of how Muslim female characters are portrayed is even smaller. In […]

This was written by matttbastard and originally published at bastard.logic: I’m having trouble reconciling the following with “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”: France has denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears a burqa on the grounds that her “radical” practice of Islam is incompatible with basic French values such as equality of the sexes. […] The […]

MMW thanks Dianna for the tip! This was written by Jehanzeb and was originally published at Broken Mystic. This has been edited for length; you can read the post in its entirety here. Meet “Dust,” or Sooraya Qadir, a burqa-garbed adolescent Afghan girl who has the ability, as shown in the scene above, to shape […]

This was written by Ursula Lindsay and originally published at The Arabist. MMW thanks Forsoothsayer for the tip! I was sent this image in an email forward. The text says: “You can’t stop them, but you can protect yourself.” Two obvious (and rhetorical) questions: Can we really not stop harassment? And does veiling really “protect” […]

This was written by Tasnim and originally appeared at epiphanies. A while ago, the assistant editor of Destiny, a South African women’s magazine, emailed me asking for help in finding information on successful Libyan women online. Unsurprisingly she had found very little, since what information there is about Libyan women does not fit the criteria […]

This post was written by Rawi and originally published at Anthology. A friend shared this BBC news clip reporting on a hijab fashion contest being sponsored by Danmarks Radio, the Danish national broadcaster. The purpose, they state, is to show “cool Muslim women who often make up a very fashion-conscious and style-confident part of the […]

This was written by Faith and originally published at Muslimnista. The NY Times published an article today titled “In Europe, Debate Over Islam and Virginity”. The article discusses how some Muslim women are surgically reconstructing their hymens before marriage to give the illusion that they’re virgins. The reason why their virginity is connected to their […]