This was written by Mohammed Ayish and originally published in The National. Most Arabs are resigned to being stereotyped by western media, but for Arab women the problem is particularly acute. I was invited to Doha in Qatar last week to present the Arab Women Media Strategy at a conference called East and West: Women in Media’s Eye. My assumption beforehand was that the event would be yet another platform to expose the misrepresentation of women in Arab media: and... Read more
A Muslim woman in Surrey, U.K., was attacked by a passenger in a car, who threw an egg at her. The Al-Janabi matriarch faces the man in court who raped her granddaughter and killed her son’s family. On the role of headscarves in Indonesian elections. More from The Malaysian Insider. Two Swedish politicans offer up a school law that removes the right to seek exemption from sexual education and swimming classes. Via Islam in Europe. Jordanian social customs and norms... Read more
Muslimahs who work hard in shaping the depiction of themselves and their sisters in the media, and who are engaged in Islamic feminist discourse to dispel cultural and literalist concepts unjustly attributed to them, are often left flattened under the heavy heap of misrepresentations and stereotypes by both Muslim and non-Muslim agencies. I would like to dedicate my post for the week to one such South African woman, who fought against all types of oppression, especially against the oppression of... Read more
In the past, I have been critical of Muslim organizations for their relative silence on issues affecting women. So I was pleasantly surprised when the entire February/March edition of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)’s magazine, The Message International, was dedicated to domestic violence. The front cover was nice with a picture of street signs that read “NO! TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE” . The release of the issue coincided with the tragic murder of Aasiya Hassan. To have a Muslim... Read more
As I count the hours to the day I return to Malaysia, I’m compiling my notes and thoughts for a small research project on media images of women in the capital. But I’ve already started collecting preliminary data; my immense curiosity in the representation of Muslim Malay women in the current media took me as far as binging on toxic levels of Malaysian online television recently. So in a way, this post will serve as an introduction to an analysis... Read more
Last week, Canadian Governor-General* Michaëlle Jean caused a huge storm in the media by eating a piece of seal heart while on a visit to an Inuit community in Nunavut, northern Canada. In the context of increasing international (and domestic) outrage against the seal hunt in Canada, Jean had this to say about her act (all quotes from this article): “These are ancient practices that are part of a way of life,” Jean said, framing her gutsy gesture as an... Read more
The Khaleej Times profiles Maryam bin Fahad, the executive director of the Dubai Press Club. The Times of India recounts the political gains made by Muslim women recently. Speaking of politics, Iran’s presidential election is down to four candidates, one of which promises to pay housewives. Meanwhile, the Coalition of Iranian Women has stated the changes they’d like to see in Iranian womens’ futures. Saudi women are pushing harder against the rule requiring a male head of a company. The... Read more
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 25, will not take physical appearance into account but judge contestants on their “inner beauty,” based on interactions with their mothers. The 10-week contest is... Read more
The right to an education is one of the most basic rights that any person can have. Yet this right is often denied to women, including many women in various Muslim societies. We have examples of women in the formative era of Islam who benefited from education and who were scholars in their own right. Still, the right to be educated is one that is fought for by Muslim women’s rights activists and a right recently reaffirmed by an Islamic... Read more
In early April, Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani survivor of a tribal-ordered gang rape who prosecuted her rapists rather than accepting a tradition of suicide after rape, married her bodyguard, Nasir Abbas Gabol. Scathing condemnations of the marriage came from Pakistani writers, women’s groups, and news outlets. While the circumstances under which she married are troubling, the way that Pakistani media has discussed the Mai and her marriage is equally troubling. According to AFP, these are the facts: Nine years her... Read more
Muslimah Media Watch
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