Brown women fiercely running, jumping and giving championship level side-eye. All of this is set to intense music and certainly an effective method of drawing in viewers- particularly from a corporate giant like Nike. The Nike brand has reached all corners of the earth and the Middle East and North African (MENA) region is no […]

Meet Lulwah Al Hmoud, A Saudi artist, whose work reframes traditional Islamic geometry and calligraphy using techniques such as silkscreen printing, painting and gilding. Dalia Mogahed is an American Muslim scholar. The Tempest had the opportunity to speak to Mogahed about her work, projects, upbringing, and more. At a time when fear of international terror […]

Originally published here.  Where does parody end and self-exoticization begin? At what point does the Arab woman artist, stepping into the so-often imagined space of “The Harem” risk pandering to an audience that seems to have a never-ending appetite for remediations of Orientalist artwork? Lebanese photographer Rania Matar’s wonderful and insightful A Girl in Her Room […]

Two years ago, Mohammad Bouazizi’s self-immolation set an inferno across parts of the Middle East and North Africa, changing the course of the region’s assumed history. We know what happened and we know what has been happening since. Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, despite having removed the bodies of dictators, continue to struggle to maintain control […]

After 90 episodes, ‘Men Wanted’, the Syrian Arabic soap opera, has concluded its season for this year on Saudi-owned television channel MBC 4. For those who do not know ‘Men Wanted,’ the Venezuelan-style soap opera is adapted to an Arab environment, with its actions taking place in Dubai. ‘Men Wanted’ tells the story of Hala, […]

Saudi cartoonist Hana Hajjar chats with MMW about work, her inspiration and challenging societal taboos.

Two constitutional court cases in Kuwait raise questions of a paradigm shift in women’s rights.

This was written by Zehra Rizavi and originally published on AltMuslimah. An attractive Arab woman in her mid-30s, wearing a silver silk hijab and high-collared matching silver blouse, looks into the camera and says, “Recently, in Qatar there has been talk of providing sex education to the youth. Subjects [would] include dealing with sexual desires, […]

This was written by Mohammed Ayish and originally published in The National. Most Arabs are resigned to being stereotyped by western media, but for Arab women the problem is particularly acute. I was invited to Doha in Qatar last week to present the Arab Women Media Strategy at a conference called East and West: Women […]

Over 500 Arab women participated in the first ever Arab Women Leadership Forum, held in The United Arab Emirates last Tuesday. The two-day event focused on the status of women in the Arab world, and discussed ways of increasing their social, economic and political contributions. Themed, ‘Women and Leadership: Global Trends and Local Innovations’, the […]