In the past few years, images of Muslim women in war settings have become increasingly common, from depictions of Syrian female rebels to all-American girls being compared to Chechnya’s so-called “Black Widows.” Last year, while writing an article on the “Black Widows” I started reading reports about Muslim women’s participation in armed struggles and noticed […]

For many of us, television drama can be an enriching part of our living experience, defining many of our day-to-day conversations with family members, co-workers and social network friends.  But what happens if drama series go too far in fantasizing about our life situations by presenting us with unreal representations of events, issues and personalities […]

We are bombarded with images from Syria every day — flashing across our television screens and updating in our Facebook newsfeeds. They are horrific pictures of the carnage left in the aftermath of massacres. It has been over a year now since the beginning of the Syrian uprising and there seems to be no relief […]

Revolution never arrives without its victims. The lives it changes and swallows within its jaws are the same lives who endured decades of violence, decadence, and impoverishment by the very systems that it wishes to replace. The revolutions in the Middle East deeply reflect the contradictions between the joy and pride of toppling a dictatorship […]

This was written by B. Full disclosure: Last month I wrote a piece for MMW about the new ‘blog heroine’, Amina Abdullah. The thrust of my piece was my discomfort at her being promoted by the Western media as such a central figure in the Syrian uprising. However, the planned posting date coinciding with Amina’s […]

Two important updates on stories that we have covered over the past couple months! First, Sara Yasin wrote recently about a blog called “A Gay Girl in Damascus,” where Syrian-American blogger Amina Abdullah Arraf has been writing about the revolution in Syria.  Amina Abdullah Arraf was allegedly abducted on June 6, and has not been heard from.  Many news […]

What does one of the world’s premier fashion and culture magazines have in common with one of the world’s most relentlessly brutal dictators? A love for Asma al-Assad. In the recent issue of Vogue, writer Joan Juliet Buck profiles Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s charming, educated, eloquent and fashionable wife for her February 2011 piece “Rose […]

This was written by Cycads and originally published at her blog. Syria’s unlikely notoriety for racy underwear collides head on with the stereotyped image of the veiled and prudish Muslim woman. In a way, ‘The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie‘ (2008, Chronicle Books) had come at an opportune time to dispel these fossilised images, but […]

The authors ask why a society known for sheltering women, would design and sell the kinkiest styles of lingerie. Of course all women need bras and panties, but the lingerie described in this book is more Frederick’s of Hollywood than it is Hanes Her Way.