I’m not a dog person, or a cat person, or a pet person. But I love horses, so naturally I perked up when I saw a headline about a blind Muslim woman who uses one as a guide.  Then I realized the headline specified, “Muslim woman”, and my wandering mind came back from my daydream […]

A few weeks ago, the news of a new law for Shi’a Muslims in Afghanistan was met with outrage in governments and media around the world.  This law would, among other things, force women to have sex with their husbands and obligate them to seek permission for activities outside the house. News since then has […]

The recent release of a video showing the flogging of a girl by the Taliban in Pakistan has created a stir across the web. Various articles have been published about it, both on mainstream news sites and blogs.  The reason for the whipping remains unclear: media outlets report intercourse before marriage, rejection of a marriage […]

“Sexual Abuse in Islamic Society” is the title of a recently published BBC article.* Right away, I knew it wasn’t going to be a good story (and by “good”, I mean objective, balanced, etc.). “Islamic society,” says the title, not an Islamic society, whatever that is. There is so much wrong with this BBC story […]

Krista recently did an analysis of a BBC profile of Egyptian women’s participation in mosques and saw the BBC profile as an example of how to cover Muslim women. The BBC has done another profile, this time of Gazan women dealing with domestic violence. I think the BBC has once again demonstrated how to cover […]

Salam waleykum, readers! I’m traveling, and so I didn’t have time to put together Friday Links this week. In their place, I’m sharing this great critique with you. It was written by Cycads and originally appeared on her blog. Next week, our regularly scheduled programming will resume, so stay tuned. Any self-respecting news editor would […]

Covering Afghan women must be an especially hard task for many Western journalists. I say this because every piece I have read about Afghan women makes them seem like they are some of the most oppressed women in the world, with little to no hope for happiness, sans intervention by a Western savior or “Western” […]

My eyebrows raised when I read this article on IslamOnline. The article, entitled Study: Men Objectify Scantily Clad Women, used a current study conducted by well-known Princeton psychologist, Dr. Susan Fiske, to promote modest clothing. I am familiar with Dr. Fiske’s work, and I couldn’t help but question whether IslamOnline was misrepresenting the study in […]

I saw the movie Taken with my friend and her husband the other day and walked out of the theater feeling scared. It’s not a horror movie; the plot focuses on the sex trafficking of young women. The buyers are rich Arab men, of course. I wanted to be angry with the filmmakers for portraying […]

A recent BBC News article has provided an astonishing suggestion that, far from being the monolithic oppressed group that many readers of mainstream Western media have come to expect, Muslim women can come from a wide range of possible experiences and backgrounds.  Who knew? Journalist Christopher Landau begins his article by telling us, The role […]