Category Gender and Class
Tamara Abdul Hadi is an Iraqi-Candian artist and photojournalist, whose recent photograph series entitled ‘Picture This’ is an attempt to deconstruct Western stereotypes of Arab men. Abdul Hadi highlights that a primary motivator for her work has been her own… Continue Reading →
“Say Bismillah and dive right in.” Ishqr.com, formerly known as HipsterShaadi.com, is a matchmaking website for ‘hipster Muslims’. Created by Muslim-Americans, the website aims to bridge the gap between dating cultures of Muslim parents and those of their Muslim-American children…. Continue Reading →
This week in class, we watched a video and did readings about the group of 60 or more Saudi women who “dared to drive” in 2013 — despite the kingdom-wide ban on female drivers. This was the story of the Women2Drive… Continue Reading →
A pop song that hilariously depicts the many ways women are oppressed in Saudi Arabia has racked up more than 2.5 million views on YouTube and angered hardliners in the kingdom. Hwages, created by producer Majed Al Esa of the… Continue Reading →
Huda Sharawi is widely recognized as the mother of Egyptian feminism. She founded the Egyptian Feminist Union in 1923, she was a founding member of the nationalist Wafd Party, and eventually would establish the Arab Feminist Union in 1945. She… Continue Reading →
So what are the big ideas that come across? One is the infinite complexity of male-female relations in the Muslim world. Initially, it seems as if women are always there to be punished. The whole saga starts when a king,… Continue Reading →
In studying gnawa rituals, trance culture, and fusion music movements over the past couple weeks, we briefly touched on the legend of Aisha Kandisha. However, given the feminist undertones of our class, I was surprised and disappointed that we did not… Continue Reading →
New video by Syrian-American Mona Haydar, in which she reprimands those who critique and exoticize the hijab. Surrounded by hijabis of various backgrounds, she provides a powerful visual and aural rebuttal to those who simplify the hijab and… Continue Reading →
The last time I was in Iraq, my uncle just learned that his wife is pregnant with twins. This last week, I visited to find these twins to be grown 15 year old teenagers. It’s been 15 years since I… Continue Reading →
Reading Susana Galan’s piece on the Women2Drive resistance movement, I cannot help but think of Pascal Menoret’s meditation on youth resistance movements in Joyriding in Riyadh: Oil, Urbanism and Road Revolt. Menoret’s book documents the development of ‘joyriding’, a phenomenon of… Continue Reading →