WISE Reflections on Muslim Women’s Leadership

Last updated on: November 3, 2011 at 1:01 pm By diana

This year the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE) held its third global conference in Istanbul Turkey. The conference, titled “WISE: Muslim Women Leaders at the Frontlines of Change,” lasted just four days, from October 14 to October 17, 2011. It included panel discussions, debates, and training sessions. This year’s conference was centered on the topic of Muslim women’s leadership. “A Woman’s Place in Islam – Views from Turkish Women” was just one of the featured panels. Interactive... Read more

Halloween Costumes, Gender, and Patriotism

Last updated on: November 1, 2011 at 5:50 pm By eren

Last week, as Halloween approached, searching for Halloween costumes online was interesting. Once more, like every year after 9/11, I was faced with the issue of hijabs, niqabs and burqas as Halloween attire. As we’ve previously discussed on MMW, hijabs, niqabs, burqas and the like are not okay as Halloween costumes. More generally, cultural appropriation is not okay, even (especially) on Halloween. Last week, Dr. Faheem Younus wrote an article titled “Hijab is Not a Halloween Costume.” Dr. Younus is... Read more

Self-Conscious Orientalism in Craig Thompson’s Graphic Novel Habibi

Last updated on: November 1, 2011 at 6:12 pm By tasnim

Editor’s note: A longer version of this post is available on Tasnim’s personal blog. Craig Thompson’s graphic novel Habibi took 7 years to complete and is close to 700 pages. The result is described on the book’s website as “a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.” Set predominately in the imaginary Wanatolia, Habibi tells the... Read more

Welcome to our new home + other updates

Last updated on: November 1, 2011 at 5:45 pm By Krista

Hello and salaams dear MMW readers, I am honoured to be writing this as new Editor-in-Chief (aka Boss Lady) of Muslimah Media Watch. We’ve been on hiatus over the past few weeks, making a few structural changes and coming up with other new ideas for how to make MMW even better. Here are some of the changes that you will see over the next little while: First, you might have noticed that we’ve moved! MMW is now being hosted by... Read more

The End of an Era

Last updated on: September 19, 2011 at 12:00 am By fatemeh

In August 2007, I started Muslimah Media Watch as a place to complain about the way Muslim women appeared in the media. In the four years since, MMW has expanded into a worldwide network of smart, engaging Muslimah writers. We’ve transformed the blogosphere and the classroom with our critical look at media and Muslim women, and I’m incredibly proud at the work that my MMW sisters and I have done. But after four years, I realize that I no longer... Read more

Friday Links | September 9, 2011

Last updated on: September 9, 2011 at 12:00 am By Krista

A 70-year-old female military commander in Afghanistan keeps the men in line. What the Playland hijab incident tells us (if you totally simplify the hijab and make narrow assumptions about why people wear it.) In other news, four people accused of “disorderly conduct” in the incident have pleaded not guilty. Linda Sarsour, an aspiring municipal politician in Brooklyn hopes to “be the first hijab-wearing elected official in America.” More on her here, speaking about being Muslim in the United states... Read more

Libya’s Girl Executioners and Gun-Brandishing Newscasters

Last updated on: September 6, 2011 at 12:00 am By tasnim

Nisreen Mansour al Forgani, centre, with fellow Gaddafi female militia members. She is now under armed rebel guard in a Tripoli hospital. Picture: AFP Gender roles are nowhere more prominent than in war, as we see male political and military leaders taking the most visible roles in armed conflicts, promoting the tendency to see the capacity to inflict violence as inherently male. During the six months of Libya’s revolt, amid stories of women working in hospitals and sending food to the... Read more

Kuwait’s Ban on “High School Girls” a Mistake

Last updated on: September 5, 2011 at 12:00 am By samya

Ramadan is over, and this is normally the time for loads of critical commentaries on soap operas featured on Arab television during the holy month. Several Ramadan dramas like “Al Hassan Wal Hussein” (on the roots of Sunni-Shi’ite tensions) and “In the Presence of the Absence” (on the late renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish) have generated heated debates across the region. Yet, here in the Gulf Region, the most controversial Ramadan television series has been “High-School Girls,” (Banat al-Thanawiya) which... Read more

Friday Links | September 2, 2011

Last updated on: September 2, 2011 at 12:00 am By fatemeh

It’s been a busy Eid week, readers. We’re sorry to divert from the normal Friday links, but are presenting a shortened version this week. We’ll be back to our regular programming next week! A Latina fights stereotypes in her own community about what happens when a woman converts to Islam: “As soon as I started wearing [the hijab] I got a lot of stares,” said Fikri, 27, who was raised as a Christian in East Harlem’s Thomas Jefferson Houses and... Read more

Eid Mubarak to all People…and Women

Last updated on: September 1, 2011 at 12:00 am By Krista

This past Monday night found me, and many others, repeatedly checking the websites of various moon-sighting organizations and local mosques and other community groups, trying to figure out which day I would celebrate Eid al-Fitr. Some of the moon-sighting websites were still uncertain or had declared Wednesday to be Eid, so when I saw on Moonsighting.com that the moon had indeed been seen in Chile, I got excited! It’s Eid! Until I read the rest of the sentence: “Crescent Moon... Read more