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 […]

Un voile, Un certain moi de juin is the story of French artist Bérengère Lefranc’s decision to wear a “burqa” (although she hesitates to define it as such) for one month and write about it.  I was skeptical about this book after reading an initial review of it in Swiss daily Le Temps. Not normally […]

Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman, published last October, is a collection of monthly columns written by Sheema Khan and originally printed in Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, between 2002 and 2009.  Khan, who founded the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN), was born in India and moved to Montreal when […]

Very seldom does Muslim media produce quality critical analysis of issues facing Muslim women. But emel magazine published a series of articles doing just that to tie in with International Women’s Day, They are, thankfully, not the run-of-the-mill articles about “why hijab” or “how to be the perfect (insert womanly role here)” that a lot of […]

Last week, I reviewed Emma Tarlo’s book Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith. This week, I got the chance to speak with her further about the book and her experiences writing it. Sara: Was there any inter-generational tension involving “newer” hijab fashions? Emma Tarlo: With most of the people I interviewed, their mothers did not wear […]

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 […]

Part I of this review ran last week. You can read it here. Why do Muslim women merely serve a sexual purpose and a way to “feel power over another human being” in Eteraz’s relationships in Children of Dust?  The answer to this question ultimately lies within the convoluted cultural-religious matrix Eteraz finds himself in […]

In her new book, entitled Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith, Emma Tarlo captures the diversity in the way that Islam is practiced against the backdrop of multi-cultural Britain. Refreshingly, the book did not aim to answer whether or not covering was a part of Islam, and neither did it represent the views of Muslim women […]