When I first saw the book Muhajababes by Allegra Stratton in a bookshop in Beirut, I was intrigued enough to buy it. The cover boldly claims to have found, “the new Middle East–cool, sexy and devout”. I happily forked out the $14. On closer inspection however, the cover of the book is quite problematic (featured […]

This piece was written by Guest Contributor Asma T. Uddin. Asra Nomani’s recent piece in Marie Claire, “My Big Fat Muslim Wedding”, underscored everything that is wrong with Marie Claire’s coverage of Islam and Muslim women.  Nomani’s piece was a confused narrative at best, conflating culture with religion and individual bad experiences with larger truths […]

“Sara, I could never get with a Muslim girl, how do they make you guys so unattainable?” a womanizing co-worker once asked me in all seriousness. There is nothing that I love more than a man that sees “ethnic” women as another check mark on an international bingo card.  I’ve heard a number of men […]

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 […]

Since 1994, South Africa celebrates National Women’s Day every year on the 9th of August, and more generally the whole month has become one in which the woes of women are highlighted and tribute is paid to their outstanding achievements. The occasion marks a march led by a 20,000-strong gathering of women on August 9, […]

Alicia wrote last week about female members of the British police force wearing burqas and headscarves to try to better understand the Muslim community.  Well, it seems like it’s “dress like a Muslim” month in Britain, because the Daily Mail’s Liz Jones has just written about her own experience wearing a burqa for a week.  […]

Some articles are fairly subtle in their Islamophobia, others less so. Judy Bachrach’s article “Twice Branded: Western Women, Muslim Lands,” starts off badly and then to proceeds to elicit gasps with its sheer awfulness. It even cites Not Without My Daughter as an accurate depiction of life for most Muslim women. Yes, really. The title […]

This post was written by Farah Banihali and originally appeared at AltMuslimah and Nuseiba. Last month Melbourne was host to “Forever Barbie” – an exhibition which “celebrates 50 years of a pop culture icon.” I’ve had my fair share of Barbie dolls when I was younger, but an exhibition? Since when did Barbie become an […]

Fatemeh already pointed out the obviousness of the title in last week’s Friday Links, but Hamida Ghafour’s article “Lewd stares distressing for women,” published in the U.A.E.’s The National newspaper, is worth a closer look.  Although it seems to promote resistance to sexism and sexual harassment, it does so in a way that perpetuates – […]

This was written by Allison McCarthy and originally appeared at GlobalComment. Tina Brown’s ploys for self-promotion are numerous, but her latest piece, along with a follow-up interview on CNN, takes the cake. Brown, former editor for noted U.S. magazines such as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Talk, has always maintained some problematic notions of […]