Though one expects a whopping media event like the death of Osama Bin Laden to produce speculative stories on an industrial scale, it is to be hoped that the speculation is at least based in reality. Blogs engage in wild speculation, but serious media blogs are still behooved to be based on facts; otherwise, we […]

Recently, I was in a bookshop with my daughter. We were in the children’s section, enjoying the vast array of colorful books. Lift-the-flap books, tactile books, storybooks, craft books, there is a great selection available. However, this diversity only goes so far. While books now will make a small effort to have characters that aren’t […]

This week, Roshonara Choudhry was convicted of attempted murder for stabbing her local MP twice in the stomach during a constituency surgery. She has received a sentence of life imprisonment, to serve at least 15 years. The judge also informed her that, had her attack proved fatal, she would have received a Whole Life Tariff […]

The MMW Friday link lists often highlights the disparity between non-Muslim perception of Muslim women’s experiences and the lives Muslim women actually live. Hence the recent spate of incredulous articles about hijab fashion websites. For Muslim women, the concept of hijab fashion is nothing new, but for Western journalists, Muslim women having the inclination and […]

There are certain stories newspapers here in the U.K. love. Anything that can be classed as “a waste of taxpayer’s money” is guaranteed to find its way into print, even more so if it involves something “frivolous” like artwork. And, as has been noticed previously at MMW, the media also has a fascination with Muslim […]

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is Muslim. In her articles she often likes to tell you this in the first sentence to give herself an air of authenticity. Therefore, when her articles are mere fodder for the further stereotyping and othering of Muslims, it is not because she is lazily feeding the expectations of her non-Muslim readers, but […]

TED Talks are short lectures of no longer than 18 minutes, delivered on a variety of subjects by numerous speakers. Sherin El Feki introduces her lecture as being about pop culture in the Arab world. She then states she’s brought along an old friend and holds up a naked Barbie doll. Then she holds up […]

A substantial amount of the media critiqued at MMW involves Muslim women being viewed as part of a minority. As flawed as it often is, one wonders if the media in Muslim majority countries may make fewer missteps. Moving on from that possibility, what about countries which have an interpretation of Islam as their legal […]

Pray the Devil Back to Hell is a documentary about the women’s peace movement in Liberia, during the conflict between Charles Taylor’s government and the warlords of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). It was directed by Gini Reticker, who has directed several other documentaries about women in Africa, including a film about the […]

Some articles are fairly subtle in their Islamophobia, others less so. Judy Bachrach’s article “Twice Branded: Western Women, Muslim Lands,” starts off badly and then to proceeds to elicit gasps with its sheer awfulness. It even cites Not Without My Daughter as an accurate depiction of life for most Muslim women. Yes, really. The title […]