Google executive Wael Ghonim became one of the faces of the Egyptian revolution through the Facebook page “We are all Khalid Said,” which was a vital spark to the revolution. But another important spark was a video posted by 26-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz from the April 6 Youth Movement, where she declared that she was going […]

On Friday, the President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia fled his homeland as it was engulfed by an uprising, sparked by the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, an unemployed university graduate who had taken to selling fruit in Sidi Bouzid.  When authorities confiscated his wares for not having a license, Bouazizi set himself on fire in front […]

If you still haven’t figured out that wearing black chadors will save your worldly soul and that wearing lipstick and heels will get you sent to the hellfire, Iran’s “Cyber Group for Promoting Chastity and the Veil [Ifaf]” is here to clear that up for you.  They are sponsored by the Iranian government and have […]

This post was written by Sara Khorshid Doost. You can read Part I here. The reactions to Davoodi’s “de-jabbing” have not been as much as you’d expect. There are the usual suspects, those who praise Davoodi for the courage to free herself from the chains of the veil, some while expressing their general dislike for […]

This post was written by Sara Khorshid Doost. Fariba Davoodi Mohajer is an Iranian women’s rights activist. She moved to the United States a few years ago after things got tough for her in Iran. Recently, she has decided to no longer wear hijab. Most notable among Iranian media reactions is a surprising interview with […]

As I snuggled on the couch to watch HBO’s documentary on Neda Agha-Soltan, I knew this wasn’t the time for popcorn. The first images that splashed across the screen were Agha-Soltan’s infamous last moments, which haunted viewers around the world exactly a year ago. The tone of onlookers and loved ones was agonizing, screaming as […]

Before watching The Stoning of Soraya M., I had already formed an opinion of it as “objectifying” and “misrepresenting” Muslim women, as a reaction to a recent spate of “save the Muslim damsel in distress” media like that which surrounds the European burqa ban debacle. The movie, however, turned out to be powerful in its […]

The Glass House, directed by Hamid Rahmanian, is a documentary of the lives of a group of young women at the Omid e Mehr day center in Tehran. These women deal with a range of issues, including drug addiction and sexual, physical, and verbal abuse. Omid e Mehr’s staff provides these women with social services […]

This guest post was written by Rochelle Terman. Shadi Sadr, the prominent Iranian lawyer and women’s rights defender, was violently arrested by plainclothes security officials on her way to Friday Prayers on June 17, 2009. Sadr was the latest causality amidst the ongoing crackdown of Iranian civil society following the disputed Iranian election on June […]

If you’ve been following coverage of the fallout from the recent Iranian elections, you have been bound to see images of women in the streets as part of protests against the election results. In fact, the Western media has put a feminine face on much of its coverage of what is happening in Iran connecting […]