This post was written by Aziz Poonawalla and originally appeared at City of Brass. I found this argument by Munawar Hassan of the political party Jamaat-i-Islami to be unbelievably disgusting and fundamentally blasphemous in the way he invokes the Qur’an to justify blatant misogyny: Here is the most disturbing part of Hassan’s comments: Anchor: The […]

So Richard Dawkins is an asshat. Anyone surprised? Here’s the comment he left on a thread that discussed sexism: Dear Muslima Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t […]

I was following with interest media commentaries on the recent experts meeting on women’s media empowerment convened by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia in Beirut (ESCWA). It was clear that independent communication campaigns to promote women’s causes and concerns are gaining a lot of ground in the Arab World. New digital […]

This was written by B. Full disclosure: Last month I wrote a piece for MMW about the new ‘blog heroine’, Amina Abdullah. The thrust of my piece was my discomfort at her being promoted by the Western media as such a central figure in the Syrian uprising. However, the planned posting date coinciding with Amina’s […]

Maureen Dowd has opinions, everybody! And she is gracious enough to share them with us little people. When she heard about the June 17 campaign to drive that Saudi women are mounting on Facebook, the first thing Dowd did was call up her friend Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who is “a pillar […]

Two important updates on stories that we have covered over the past couple months! First, Sara Yasin wrote recently about a blog called “A Gay Girl in Damascus,” where Syrian-American blogger Amina Abdullah Arraf has been writing about the revolution in Syria.  Amina Abdullah Arraf was allegedly abducted on June 6, and has not been heard from.  Many news […]

The Star recently reported on the existence of “Begumpura” neighborhoods in Ontario. “Begumpura,” translated from Urdu as “the place where women live,” refers to neighborhoods where immigrant women live with their families. The areas are usually occupied by women of South Asian origin whose husbands work in the Middle East. The title “Colony of wives” […]

The media response to the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape charges is predictably horrific. The salacious gossip can maintain itself for weeks: the victim lives in a complex for HIV-positive residents (no wait! She doesn’t); wears hijab; and is “pious and respectable.” No, you say, she’s not unattractive—she’s actually got great breasts? A full 57% of French […]

This was written by Farangis Najibullah and originally published at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. RFE/RL’s Ukraine Service correspondents Volodymyr Prytula in Crimea and Maryana Drach in Prague contributed to this report. The headlines were nothing short of chilling. “Aspiring ‘Miss Ukraine’ Killed Under Shari’a Laws In Crimea” warned Ukrainian online newspaper “Gazeta Po-Kievski.” “Radical Islamists […]

Last week, Manal Al-Sharif was arrested because she posted a video of herself driving around Alkhobar, Saudi Arabia, on YouTube. Because it is illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia, both she and her brother were detained. Al-Sharif has since been released, having pledged to take no further part in the Women2Drive campaign. The Women2Drive […]