Last month, one of my close friends in Dubai got engaged. She is 35, an accountant, and her fiancé is a doctor. I still remember how her mother used to worry about her not getting married, to the extent that she kept wondering what was going to happen to her daughter after she (the mother) […]

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 […]

With the summer Olympics fast approaching (and truly, what place says summer better than London), it was only natural that a bit of controversy would have to preface an event upon which the integrity of your otherwise boring country lies. And who better to offer this controversy than Saudi Arabia? Earlier this year, Human Rights […]

On a quiet Saturday morning, while browsing the web for the day’s news, a story from Saudi Arabia caught my attention: thousands of female university students at the King Khalid University in the southern city of Abha were reported protesting against against poor on-campus sanitary services. According to Emirati newspaper Al Bayan, one of the […]

2001: Driver’s Education on a warm spring day. Despite years of riding in cars, I felt the tremors of Western decadence between my legs once I sat behind the wheel. My hijab felt a little looser, and I was overwhelmed with so many haraam thoughts that I could not hear a word that my driving […]

Editor’s note: When Azra forwarded us this article, everyone had something to say.  Below are thoughts from several MMW contributors. Azra: I saw this post from The Atlantic come up in my twitter feed, and was intrigued. And then I saw the video and read Max Fisher’s thoughts. My intrigue turned to disappointment. [See the […]

In a short interview in The New Yorker this past September, American photographer Lynsey Addario, who has covered the Middle East and South Asia for over a decade, talks about her experience photographing Muslim women: “The more I photographed Muslim women, the more I was able to metaphorically strip away the burqas and hijabs, and […]

This post was originally published at the interrogations of shamshouma. In the last few weeks, The Saudi TV channel MBC has been broadcasting an ad of a Saudi national breast cancer campaign, organized by Zahra Breast Cancer Association. Officially launched on October 10th, the national campaign is led by Princess Hessah Bint Trad Al-shaalan (the […]

This was written by Maha Akeel and was originally published in Common Ground News Service. “Saudi Arabia is not yet ready for women to participate in the upcoming municipal elections on 23 April.” The election commissioner made this bold statement late last month, referring to women’s roles as both voters and candidates. Two years earlier, […]

When 32-year-old divorcee Samar Al Badawi went to Jeddah court to challenge a “filial ingratitude” complaint filed by her father, the judge rejected her claims and ruled in favor of her father. And despite documented physical abuse, previous court rulings to lift her father’s guardianship, and even a royal order to send her to an […]