Questioning Marnia Lazreg’s One-Way Correspondence with Muslim Women
Reading Marnia Lazreg’s new book Questioning the Veil (Princeton University Press, 2009) was at the same time a useful and annoying experience. The book is useful because it compiles every single argument that has already been brought against women wearing the veil, from the stupidest arguments (i.e, it prevents women from “the coquettish desire” of wearing earrings) to the “scientific” ones (i.e, veiling has “potentially deleterious psychological effects”). The book is also annoying because these same we

Beauty and the Media Beast: the 2009 Miss Arab World Pageant
Let’s cut to the point: no matter how hard anyone tries to make it deep and philosophical, the word “beauty pageant” will always refer to looks. And as variable and relative the definition of “beautiful” might be for a lot of people, and some of those who work as beauticians and fashion experts put standards upon which beauty depends. This is applied in all kinds of beauty pageants, including the 2009 Miss Arab World pageant, a new pageant that is causing lots of controversy. The first Miss Arab World Contest took place at the Intercontinental Hotel in Sharm el Sheikh July 26 – 29, 2009.  According to All Beirut News

Upcoming MMW Changes
Salam waleykum, readers! First of all, we’d like to send a big thank you to all of our faithful readers and everyone who voted for us in the Brass Crescent Awards! We won Best Female Blog and received an honorable mention for Best Group Blog! This is the first year we’ve actually won, and your support (in a blog award and every day) means a lot to us. MMW is undergoing a number of small but significant changes, so we thought we’d keep you in the loop. Unfortunately, we’ve decided to phase out our “Voice of Muslim Women” project. It’s a huge undertaking, and none of us really have the ti

Eid Mobarak!
Muslimah Media Watch would like to wish our readers a happy and blessed Eid al Adha! Image via ~AnaBeauty's deviantART profile.

Friday Links — November 27, 2009
ABC’s Lama Hasan reports on her abaya issues from Hajj. Couldn’t think of anything more pressing related to women’s issues and Hajj? Huh. SAAYA hosts a program to educate Muslim women in Tamil Nadu about government welfare programs. Hijabtrendz reflects on her experience of r