Fatemeh already pointed out the obviousness of the title in last week’s Friday Links, but Hamida Ghafour’s article “Lewd stares distressing for women,” published in the U.A.E.’s The National newspaper, is worth a closer look.  Although it seems to promote resistance to sexism and sexual harassment, it does so in a way that perpetuates – […]

Rabble.ca, an alternative news source in Canada, recently posted a podcast that was originally broadcast on Co-Op Radio in Vancouver, on their show “The F Word,” which looks at feminist issues.  Entitled “Islam, women and feminisms,” this segment features interviews with two Canadian Muslim women, Itrath Syed and Farzana Doctor. The host of the show […]

Originally posted at Muslim Lookout The Canadian government has (finally) decided to lay to rest its plans to introduce legislation that would force women who wear niqab (fabric that covers their faces) to show their faces when voting. This comes as a relief, not so much because of the actual legislation, but because of the […]

As I’m sure many of you have seen already, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said last week that he supports a commission to consider banning the wearing of burqas in public places.  Here are some excerpts of his speech, quoted from this article: “We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind […]

I wrote last week about a positive portrayal of a Muslim woman who had recently been voted president of a mosque.  I’m going to stick with the positive stuff for at least another week (although, considering the state of global media portrayals of Muslim women, this probably won’t last too much longer) and talk about […]

The Toledo Blade recently covered the election of a woman, Salmenna Sediqe, as president of a local mosque: Salmenna Sediqe, a businesswoman and mother of five, was elected last month and will serve a one-year term as president of the mosque on Alexis Road in Sylvania. The administrative position is separate from the mosque’s religious […]

Last week, Canadian Governor-General* Michaëlle Jean caused a huge storm in the media by eating a piece of seal heart while on a visit to an Inuit community in Nunavut, northern Canada.  In the context of increasing international (and domestic) outrage against the seal hunt in Canada, Jean had this to say about her act […]

I spent this past Sunday morning at a brunch hosted by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women to honor “Women Who Inspire.”  Five Canadian Muslim women were presented with awards recognizing their contributions in the fields of politics, education, and community activism. Also present was Mona Eltahawy, a U.S.-based journalist who gave a speech about […]

The Fédération des femmes du Québec (Federation of Quebec Women; abbreviated as FFQ) recently had a special assembly in order to clarify its position on whether headscarves should be permitted for people working in the public service.  (The question of “reasonable accommodation” for minority groups has been the subject of intense debate in Quebec for […]

I wrote a little while ago about the media coverage of the Toronto sexual assault case in which the female complainant was ordered by the presiding judge, Justice Norris Weisman, to remove her niqab while testifying. At the time that I posted my earlier article, hearings were underway in Ontario’s Superior Court to appeal the […]