Christopher Dickey’s analysis of an interview with Defne Bayrak (pictured below), the wife of the Jordanian suicide bomber Humam Al-Balawi in Afghanistan, asks the wrong questions. Instead of pondering the reason why a woman of Bayrak’s intelligence would condone suicide bombing, he creates an image of women involved in al-Qaeda that made me feel like […]

Tahmena Bokhari, a feminist, Muslim, Canadian, social worker, and educator, was recently crowned Mrs. Pakistan 2010 (not to be confused with Miss Pakistan World). Bokhari’s accomplishments are varied and impressive: a master’s degree in social work, a history of working at women’s shelters and other humanitarian initiatives.  She currently teaches social work at two different […]

Earlier this month, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a gradual introduction of body scanners into U.K. airports following the failed attack on an American airliner on Christmas Day European nations are split over the necessity of introducing the body scanners. Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom are planning to install the scanners […]

Something decidedly medieval is in the air in Saudi Arabia. Fears of black magic and curses cast by Indonesian domestic helpers have spread across the country, and  Saudi employers increasingly feel the need to hire private investigators to check their domestic workers for suspicious behavior and evidence for witchcraft. Investigators, mostly foreign women from neighboring […]

Allow me to choose four, five or even nine men, just as my wildest imagination shall chose. I’ll pick them with different shapes and sizes, one of them will be dark and the other will be blonde. Tall or maybe short, they are to be Chosen from different denominations, religions, races and nations. And I […]

Writing for MMW, I often get tired of seeing images, over and over, of Muslim women as oppressed, helpless, and passive. It’s always a nice change to see pieces in the media that demonstrate alternate representations, even when these can come with their own problems.  Two recent articles about Muslim women working as activists and […]

A recent decision to auction a “Burqa Barbie” for a Save the Children fundraising campaign (“to educate children in conflict areas around the world”) has been making its rounds online this past week.  Of the 500 different Barbies designed by Eliana Lorena, it was only natural for the culturally inappropriate (Islamic!) “Burqa Barbie” to be […]

The new CBC weeknight show Connect with Mark Kelley recently aired a segment on niqab as part of its “Ask Me Anything” series, in which members of the public are given the chance to ask questions about the experiences and perspectives of a designated person.  Previous “Ask Me Anything” conversations have included a nurse who […]

This was written by Sara Elghobashy and originally published at the elan blog. Whenever a story breaks that Muslim women are suffering somewhere in the world, the press foams at the mouth. Headlines with the words “unveiled” or “veiled” pop up everywhere and the world goes on to sing the song of “Muslim women are […]

Well, readers, I’m feeling an interesting combination of exhausted and giddy at the moment after my graduation today, which doesn’t lend itself well to my usual snarky media critique.  I won’t even try.  Instead, I’m going to point you in the direction of this article (mentioned recently on MMW’s Twitter feed), so that you can […]