3 Seconds Divorce is a 2018 Hindi-language documentary, which started streaming on Netflix in mid-June., Made by Indo-Canadian filmmaker Shazia Javed the film explores the tradition known as instant divorce, or triple divorce, often occuring in South Asia, in which a Muslim man divorces his wife by simply saying “divorce” three times in a row, […]

The past couple of months have felt like a dam has broken as more and more women (and men) come forward to disclose their experiences with sexual harassment and/or assault and to name their abusers. I still am not sure what it is about this moment that has made people listen to the survivors, because […]

This post is related, but only slightly, to the Nouman Ali Khan (NAK) scandal (in which a religious leader used his power to harass and threaten women, as MMW explored in a recent roundtable). I don’t want to talk about NAK, but I do want to talk about the idea of spiritual abuse, a concern […]

*Trigger Warning* for description of sexual violence. Mukhtaran Mai, Pakistani women’s rights activist, recently walked a fashion runway in Karachi, Pakistan.  The goal, as explained, was to model courage and hope for other Pakistani women. Mukhtaran Mai came into the spotlight 14 years ago when she was gang raped and paraded naked by men of […]

As many of you know by now, tragically, Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch was recently murdered by her brother. Inna lillahi wa inna illaihi rajaioon (to God we belong and to God we return). I hadn’t followed her but I had known of her. Even without following her I knew she was a big […]

We’re most of the way through the last 10 days of Ramadan, the most blessed days of the most blessed month of the Islamic year. I didn’t fast this Ramadan. I haven’t fasted since the third year of grad school when I no longer had enough classes to fill my need for social interaction. During […]

Last month, Beyonce released her latest visual album, Lemonade. And the responses have been numerous. On CBC’s q, Naila Keleta-Mae called it masterful and discussed the legacy that Beyonce is creating. Courtney Lee listed the lessons about Black womanhood she sees, over at Sojourner, and the presence of God and Christianity in the album, over […]

In February, The Daily Beast published this story on Nadia Ali, a Pakistani-American porn star who is, as the article describes, “a 24-year-old…. first-generation American from Pakistan. She’s been in the adult industry for just a year, but doesn’t mind pushing religious boundaries in the name of XXX entertainment. Oh, and she’s also a practicing […]

The issue of violence against women in Pakistan has received some international press in the last week or so. First, with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker, winning an Oscar for A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, her documentary about Saba Qaiser, a survivor of an attempted “honour killing”. This was followed by […]

In a recent VICE News short documentary, The Kohistan Story: Killing for Honor, producers Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Saad Zuberi, along with host Hani Taha, tell the story of five young women and three young men who were killed in Kohistan, KPK, Pakistan in an apparent “honour killing.” As VICE explains: “In May 2012, a grainy […]