Earlier this month, CNN Expansión reported that the Saudi government aimed to prohibit the Blackberry Messenger service, since it is considered a threat to national security because the service doesn’t allow the government to intercept messages. Blackberry has become very popular among single young people, who use it as a way to connect with men […]

Dear Maureen, I hear you’re back from your jaunt over in Saudi Arabia. Kudos to you for making it back from that big, bad place. Somebody get this woman the gin and tonic she deserves! First, a secret: I am so tired of frothy, pop-culture media and art about the question of veiling. It’s really […]

As part of the True Life series, MTV recently aired an episode titled, “Resist the Power! Saudi Arabia,” in which the lives of several young Saudis were filmed. The show documents a handful of struggles experienced by Saudi Arabia’s large youth population. Among them, the show follows a young man named Ahmad in his fight […]

Something decidedly medieval is in the air in Saudi Arabia. Fears of black magic and curses cast by Indonesian domestic helpers have spread across the country, and  Saudi employers increasingly feel the need to hire private investigators to check their domestic workers for suspicious behavior and evidence for witchcraft. Investigators, mostly foreign women from neighboring […]

Reading Claudia Ricci’s scatterbrained piece in The Huffington Post about text message divorcing was not only infuriating, but also a reminder of many of the things, which I hate about attitudes towards women’s issues in the Middle East. The article opens with a snarky line about men being able to marry four women, and then […]

The advertisement begins with a short video of a woman moving from the back seat to the front seat, followed by the simple question, “drive?” The video sets the tone for this campaign, which asks the general population to discuss and also listen. The n7nu campaign has a very simple message: one of awareness.  The […]

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

When a woman says, “My guardian knows what’s best for me,” what should we do? Earlier this month, blogger Eman Al Nafjan posted her feelings about a new campaign in Saudi Arabia. The campaign, which began last month, is called “My guardian knows what’s best for me” and aims to gather one million signatures in […]

News media reported at the beginning of the month that Saudi Arabia will hold its first beauty pageant, now in its second year. This pageant, unlike the standard pageants that feature contestants in various outfits and judge them on their appearance, is looking for “Miss Beautiful Morals.” The contest, open to women ages 15 to […]

Reading Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s commentary in The Independent reminded me a bit of a group of people that Khaled Abou El Fadl mentioned in his introduction to Amina Wadud’s Inside the Gender Jihad. The group of people I refer to are “self-hating Muslims” with “tormented soul(s)” who seem all too eager to assuage the bigoted view […]