The late submission deadline for the Women’s Voices Now “Women’s Voices from the Muslim World” film festival closed last week. We thought it would be a great time to highlight some of the films submitted–we’ll be featuring a new film every day this week. This one, titled “Sunglasses,” was submitted by Mustafa Kia in Afghanistan: What do you think, readers? Check out the rest of the submissions at the Women’s Voices Now website. Read more
The Correctional Service of Canada has hired its first female Muslim prison guard, and her hiring has garnered mixed reviews. Last weekend, hundreds of Muslim believers gathered outside Azerbaijan’s education ministry to protest a ban on hijab, which police broke up. More here and here and here. MuslimMatters deconstructs an Islamophobic chain email that claims Islam is harmful to women. The Urban Literature News Magazine profiles Maysoon Zayid. Surprise! Muslim women bear the brunt of stereotyping. Ahmadiyya Muslims in Ghana... Read more
In a recent article by heralded Muslim Feminist Mona Eltahawy in the ever-tabloid Toronto Star, asks to be allowed to confuse you, the reader, by virtue of the apparently contradictory label self-assigned to her socio-political and religious beliefs. The point of article, as it become somewhat clear-ish in the last few sparse paragraphs, is to shed light on how despite her unorthodox views on Islam, and particularly gender in Islam, the faith "belongs" to her as much as to any other Muslim, more orthodox than her or not. This perspective frames her support for the Mosque near Ground Zero in New York City, Park51; a support caught between " [televangelist] Bill Keller's right wing: bigoted and xenophobic [..and] the Muslim right wing, which uses Islam...to fuel its misogyny." Read more
Yesterday, I went over the presentations at the NVIC conference “Female Actors in the Egyptian Islamic Public Sphere-Increasing Significance through Increasing Mediatization;” today, I’ll cover the speakers’ day. Four female speakers were invited, representing different messages and perspectives. The speakers were Dalia Younis, a final year medical student who is the moderator for her mother’s website and preaching business; Dr. Suzan, a neurophysiology professor who is also a female preacher; Kawthar Kholy, the head of the social department in OnIslam;... Read more
A very interesting workshop was organized on November 24-25 by the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC) titled: “Female Actors in Islamic Public Sphere – Increasing Significance through Increasing Mediatization.” This was a great conference, and I wish I could recap it all for you. But I’ll keep my review to the media-related panels. Maria Roeder from Mannheim University discussed how private life could be highly political: she raised the questions of who is defining what is public and what is... Read more
According to a recent study carried out by Transparency International, Somalia was deemed to be the most corrupt nation in the world. The economic and political instability of Somalia has made it the site of many human rights violations, particularly against women. Females are underrepresented in the workforce as well as education. In fact, slightly over 1/3 of the students at the primary school level are girls, and very little progress has been made in this regard. I had the... Read more
Al Jazeera reports that a new Egyptian law guarantees 64 seats to female candidates, meaning a 1,500% rise in female parliamentarians. Remember Aisha? From the Time cover? Her father-in-law has been arrested in connection with her mutilation. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has not been released from prison. We’re confused, too. Read up on what’s going on at The Guardian. The New York Times looks at Afghanistan’s women’s soccer team’s struggle to compete. Norway could face a hijab ban in schools. Muslims ... Read more
The desire to crown an intelligent, sexy-yet-fashionable lady as the Carrie Bradshaw of the Middle East has been a fierce competition, because, you know, there is nothing more mysterious than the lack of sex and dating in the Middle East. With the help of a string of labels, high society, and awkward adventures in romance, Amy Mowafi makes a convincing effort to win the Bradshaw title with her novel “Fe-mail: The Trials and Tribulations of being a Good Egyptian Girl.”... Read more
This is a guest post, written by Layla in response to our Doha Debates Roundtable. I’m a Muslim woman by birth and cultural affiliation that has lived in the U.S., the Middle East, and most recently, France. For a year and a half now, since President Sarkozy first began advocating the ban on the face veil, I’ve had mixed feelings about this issue. So I was very excited to watch the Doha Debates on this subject, thinking that I’d finally... Read more
Angelina Jolie is known more for being the sexier half of Brangelina and her patchwork family, but her luscious lips and film projects are a close second. The latest controversy regarding the actress’s directorial debut flick in Bosnia is about a Muslim woman. The yet-to-be-titled film is set in Bosnia on the eve of the 1992 Bosnian war, where war crimes and ethnic cleansing left more than 100,000 dead and thousands missing. Many Bosnian-Muslim women were raped by Serbian soldiers;... Read more
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