All About them Babies: Part 1

Childbirth is a woman’s issue. Childbirth is a woman’s issue. Childbirth is a woman’s issue . . . I’ve seen this phrase countless times during my research for this post, and maybe it’s just me, but something about these five words put together in this order is extremely unsettling. My first response to this sentence […]

Muslim Feminists as a Minority

Dominant: to utilize your power and influence over others. In every country and culture, there are dominant groups according to a number of different characteristics. The most common differentiating factors include culture, race, gender, and religion. In the United States, there are many dominant groups, including caucasians, straight individuals, and Christians. These groups tend to […]

Are We Painting Everyone With the Same Brush?

Female Genital Mutilation On Monday, October 29th, Reza Aslan took an interesting spin on the issue of Female Genital Mutilation when going against the comedian Bill Maher’s perspective of violence and oppression against women. Maher stated that this is a problem in “Muslim countries” that occurs in extreme forms. According to Aslan, the argument was […]

The Ongoing Fight for Women’s Rights

In the United States, I wake up daily to rights I didn’t even realize I had been granted…because I never thought someone would take them away. As an unmarried American woman, rights like driving, going places unattended, and hanging out with guy friends are just everyday moments for me, not preposterous acts that could be […]

Marriage

The face of marriage is changing all over the world. In the United States, marriage is becoming less common with domestic partnerships and divorce on the rise. In the Middle East marriages are occurring later in life due to economic trouble and the protection of women’s rights. In the United States, the average man is 29 years old when they first […]

Free Nasrin Sotoudeh

Iran has recently received a lot of attention in regards to the possibility that they are building a nuclear weapon, increasing tensions with Israel. Another important issue involving Iran has been receiving less attention from mass media. Nasarin Sotoudeh, a member of the Defenders of Human Rights, the One Million Signatures Campaign to Change Discriminatory Laws Against Women, and the […]

Islam, Women, and Their Sexuality

A group on Facebook, The Uprising of Women in the Arab World, recently caught my attention. The page is a call to action for men and women to join together in order to fight the oppression of women in the Arab World and grant women the rights guaranteed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of […]

The fight for safety; more than taking back the night

Rape and other forms of violence against women are issues that continue to be relevant in both the U.S. and the Middle East. In all of these countries the fight continues for women to feel safe walking home alone at night or in some cases just being seen alone with a man. These are not […]

Migrant Domestic Workers: Unprotected Hired Help

Migrant domestic workers are primarily women who travel to foreign countries to work within a household on an assortment of duties including child/elderly care and housekeeping. As early as 1965, the United Nation’s International Labor Organization branch named domestic workers an exploitable demographic. Since this recognition, little has been done to ensure the safety of […]

The Arab Spring: A Women’s Awakening

In the West, many people associate Islam and the Middle East with women’s oppression. Islam itself does not perpetuate oppressive ideals against women, but laws and customs in many countries make women second-rate citizens and are even hateful toward women. With the occurrence of the Arab Spring; however, Arab women are fighting back. In December […]