When I volunteered to write a review of the monthly magazine Sisters for MMW last month, I had no idea how challenging it would be for me. Weeks passed with the PDF copies that Sisters had kindly sent waiting in my inbox, until my deadline finally prompted me to give them more than a skim-read.  Sisters was founded by […]

This week marks the ten-year anniversary of the Iraq war, and when it comes to the position of women in present-day Iraqi society articles are unanimously negative and speak of rampant violence against women, limited freedom for contemporary Iraqi women and the ongoing fight for gender equality. CNN also follows up with “miracle baby Noor,” years […]

This post was written by guest contributor Deonna Kelli Sayed. Divorce is a growing challenge for North American Muslim communities, as well as in Muslim societies around the world.  Part of that challenge is a lack of understanding regarding Muslim female experiences post-divorce. Thoughtful, researched dialogue exists concerning legal issues impacting divorce among Muslims in […]

Queer Muslim. These two words appear to be incongruent terms in many contexts; however, there has been a real commitment recently to creating a discourse that allows for queer Muslim voices to be respected and validated. It is tiring to be caught in conversations when the various parties cannot accept each other simply for their […]

This post was written by guest contributor Shireen Ahmed (@_shireenahmed_). One of the most exciting aspects of the Olympic Summer Games 2012 was that every participating nation sent in women athletes as part of their delegations. Media faithfully reported on the successes and stories of “hijab-clad” women participating in the London Games, the most prestigious sporting […]

This post was written by guest contributor Yasmin N. Ali. The sounds of violin spun around an increasingly frenzied melody of sitar, tabla and the loud, confident vocals of the lead singer.  He danced and spun around his band mates, all of whom were jumping to the steady beats pouring from the drummer.  The result […]

Last week was International Women’s Day, and a lot of news items this week were related to this event. In Kazakhstan, this day is marked with Miss-competitions and a call by the president for classes to teach mothering skills. RFE/RL marks this day by featuring the stories of several working mothers, from countries like Tajikistan, […]

This post was written by guest contributor Yasmeen Nizamy. The most basic rights: that’s what we will be talking about here. Forget about the flashy statements of the declarations of human rights, for the people I’m discussing are not recognized as humans to begin with. I’m talking about street children. But, who are street children? […]

As many of our loyal and long-time readers are well aware of, we’ve often covered the issue of women’s space and place in mosques. Whether we were looking at Chinese female imams and all-women mosques or the effect of mosque space on women’s love lives and, well, humanity, we’ve explored the various issues of gender, […]

From this year onwards, wearing a niqab is officially an offence in the Netherlands, with “stiff fines” as the punishment. In 2012, interior minister Liesbeth Spies and the Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders pushed for a ban  on dual nationality, which received mixed support within Parliament. What do wearing a face-covering veil and having another nationality […]