At the recent three-day Film & Comic Convention in Dubai, I was struck by the number of young, female collective art groups from the Gulf region. One example of such a collective, Light Studio, has members who travel from Saudi Arabia to attend conventions such as this in order to sell and promote the work […]

How to keep a hijab on when skydiving in Dubai? A Canadian female skydiving instructor discusses how Muslim women can experience all the excitement in the emirate of Dubai.   What made a young Australian lady defend a Muslim woman against a racial rant? A viral video shows a Muslim couple as victims of a […]

A few years back, when shopping malls turned into major destination for shoppers and tourists in the United Arab Emirates, the issue of how men and women appear in public began to gain greater attention. Mall entrances have come to carry signs and instructions relating not only to pets, trash, bicycles and skaters, but dress […]

So I never really envisioned this being a topic worth mentioning on MMW.  However, for reasons that will become clear in a minute (or already, for most of you, given the photo attached to this post), it has become unexpectedly relevant to tell you that my family has an impressively (or embarrassingly, depending on who […]

Desperate in Dubai, a cheeky exposé novel based on the original blog written by Ameera al-Hakawati (a pseudonym), revolves around the lives of four women who live, love, and labour in the sparkling Gulf city of Dubai. I recently had the chance to catch up with al-Hakawati in Dubai, to chat about her book, her […]

For many of us, the last few weeks before the start of Ramadan mark a time to prepare ourselves mentally and spiritually for gaining the benefits of the month ahead. As such, the mass email forwards began arriving in my inbox in early August, with lists prepared by various Muslim institutions gently reminding the faithful […]

Dubai’s leading U.A.E.-based international property developer, Hydra Properties, recently announced plans to build an all-female office tower for businesswomen. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I dislike it because it promotes segregation of the sexes and further perpetuates the idea that women need ‘different’ facilities in order to succeed in the workforce. […]