We will soon have a full review of Mona Eltahawy’s Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution. In the meantime, here is a discussion on the book by three of our writers. Sya: What’s up with books about “the Middle East and North Africa” that are about female genitals, one way or another? Tasnim: The title reminded me of Shereen El Feki’s Sex and the Citadel. Having read both books, I feel Sex and the Citadel... Read more
I started reading “Recovering the Female Voice in Islamic Scripture” by Georgina L. Jardim a few weeks ago. As I approached the end of the book, I was traveling and got to read the conclusion by the beaches of the Caribbean Sea. I write this as a way of placing myself into the reading of this book. My latest academic endeavours include intersectional feminist, Indigenous feminist and decolonial literature, which have influenced and transformed the ways in which now I... Read more
England’s first women-only mosque will open in Bradford, a 19th-century industrial boomtown and one of the most heavily Muslim-populated cities in the U.K., the Muslim Women’s Council announced. House of Fraser is now selling sports hijabs that are designed for women to wear while doing exercise, including swimming. According to the Daily Mail, It follows a move by John Lewis last year to sell hijab school uniforms. Congo-Brazzaville, a Central African nation, has banned women from wearing a full-face... Read more
One of the events at the All About Women program held at Sydney Opera House this year was entitled “Conversations with Muslim Women.” Featuring two Australian Muslim women, Randa Abdel-Fattah and Susan Carland, the event was advertised as a conversation with, rather than about, Muslim women. So the three women on stage have an engaging discussion, by turns funny and poignant, about the dilemmas of being a Muslim woman in Australia, from facing discrimination, to negative perspections of Islam, to being... Read more
Warner Bros. Studios officials allegedly told two Muslim women wearing headscarves they could not sit in the front row of ‘The Real’ because they should not be seen on camera. Unveiled is a play that focuses on the struggles of five Muslim women learning to live in the post 9/11 world. It will be presented in Suisun City, California. Have you heard about the Halal Shops opening here and there? Now there is one which will open in Mecca,... Read more
Palestinian rap group Dam’s latest song “Who You Are,” featuring newest member Maysa Daw tackles misogyny and “make believe feminism.” As one of the groups members, Tamer Nafer, puts it: we need to “criticize the hypocritical part of our society, which likes to play ‘make believe feminism’ from time to time.” This is not the first Dam song that tackles misogyny– an earlier song, “If I could go back in time” featuring Amal Murkus, was about honor killing in Palestine,... Read more
Le Temps is the French part of Switzerland’s newspaper of record, and one of the newspapers I read daily. I am a huge fan of their literature section, I have acquaintances who work there, and (full disclosure) I have even had the honor of being citied in that paper. So in other words, I usually enjoy Le Temps’ news coverage. One of the things that has been bothering me lately, which has also been a running theme in... Read more
How to keep a hijab on when skydiving in Dubai? A Canadian female skydiving instructor discusses how Muslim women can experience all the excitement in the emirate of Dubai. What made a young Australian lady defend a Muslim woman against a racial rant? A viral video shows a Muslim couple as victims of a hateful rant. Muslim women should be allowed to wear the veil in court, top judge in UK suggests. Lord Neuberger, the President of the... Read more
Six years ago I attended a contemporary dance workshop, and while I’ve been dancing for most of my life, what struck me most was one improvisation that involved dancing as if you were the furniture in your room. When we had come up with a sequence of movements representing various wardrobes, nightstands, mirrors, beds and tables, we had to then dance it while interpreting the concept of fear. I was thinking about this workshop as I watched Desert Dancer (2015)... Read more
Originally published here. Where does parody end and self-exoticization begin? At what point does the Arab woman artist, stepping into the so-often imagined space of “The Harem” risk pandering to an audience that seems to have a never-ending appetite for remediations of Orientalist artwork? Lebanese photographer Rania Matar’s wonderful and insightful A Girl in Her Room series (capturing teenage girls in their most sacred space, the bedroom) includes some photographs that are clearly posed to mimic familiar odalisque imagery: Was the subject asked... Read more
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