When I was growing up in a small city on Canada’s East Coast, many of my classmates had no idea where Pakistan was located. It was the mid-eighties and I was unable to convince them I was NOT Indian just because both my parents were born in India. I decided to do an extensive geography […]

“When someone wants to be an artist, because they cannot let what’s going on around them stay the same, achieving fame in the world of art becomes unimportant.” –Alma Suljevic I am a lover of all art forms, including cinema; the Women Make Movies initiative, and the kind of varied and thought-provoking cinema they help […]

Transgender identities and trans* embodiment are topics that are generally ignored within many communities, and the Muslim community is no exception, and transgendered people are oftentimes pushed to the margins. Art, film, music and other forms of artistic expression, unlike more fixed modes of understanding, can often open up a conversation that communities and individuals […]

In recent news, Muslim women have been highlighted for their violent actions towards in men in their society. While comparing different articles reporting on the incident of the unnamed Iranian woman (whom I will refer to as the Bad Hijabi for convenience) who beat up the cleric who policed her for her “bad hijab,” I couldn’t […]

FIFA has overturned its headscarf ban, enforced since 2007, on women playing soccer with their heads covered. Predictably, the French Football Federation issued an instant “this won’t happen here” communiqué, whereas Qatar, hosting the 2022 Olympics, commended the decision. FIFA’s decision has incited strong criticism online. All you have to do is read the comments […]

An eclectic round-up of some articles of interest elsewhere on the internet: A Muslim participant on Project Runway Philippines was recently eliminated.  MMW reader Sumaya writes that, “Just as quickly as I found out about the first Muslimah to be on Project Runway in the third season of Project Runway Phillipines, sadly I found out […]

We’re sharing some excerpts today from a few different stories that relate to things we’ve covered recently on MMW.  Enjoy! The editors of Love, InshAllah, which Merium reviewed in February, wrote an article for International Women’s Day about the importance of listening to Muslim women’s diverse stories: There is no denying that there is subjugation […]

Amid speculations that Iran has made advances in nuclear technology for the purpose of making nuclear weapons, Iranian women have become inserted into the dicey conversation. Numerous news sources have made it their prerogative to discuss exactly how Iranian women fit into this hypothetically catastrophic situation. Oddly enough, they aren’t plugging the ancient and sad […]

After reading a couple of reviews (on FilmJabber and Afterellen.com) about Circumstance, a recent film by Maryam Keshavarz, I decided to give the film a shot. Circumstance is a drama set in Iran, where gender and sexuality are heavily controlled by the political regime. The film depicts the story of Atafeh and Shireen, two sixteen-year-old […]

Golnaz Esfandiari writes about a cartoon by a hard-line news agency: “The cartoon suggests that women who cover their hair and body fully are perhaps as smart as Albert Einstein, while those who don’t completely observe the obligatory Islamic dress code are brainless.”