Kurdish Women: No Way Back
The most sustainable way to defend women’s rights is to acknowledge that they are more than victims suffering in silence or those who mourn the dead. They are also actors with powerful voices.
Previous Issues
Volume 2
End Corruption and Mysogyny
Oppression, especially when undercover and covert, is often perpetuated in the very places where promises are made to eradicate this social ill: in the halls of government, from the mouths of elected or appointed officials, and in the content of public policy, for example.
Volume 2
Ideology vs. Islam
Many people, including Muslims, believe that Islam permits child marriage. As a result of this misconception, Islam is dismissed by non-Muslims as a medieval, oppressive, and illogical religion. Those Muslims who possess little knowledge of the Qur‘an defend and support child marriage as a tenet of their faith
Volume 2
Education Through Film
The excessive attention placed on a woman’s purity by her religious-cultural community does not align with the practices and customs of modern democratic societies. This creates a gap that leaves room for the atrocities of honor crimes.
Volume 2
Zunn: Showgirls of Pakistan
The sexual culture of Pakistan is fascinating, reflecting a deep patriarchy. While women observe purdah (veiling and segregation from men) at home, Punjabi men, mostly of lower social strata, flock regularly to sexual innuendo-filled theaters without any moral qualms.
Volume 2
Making Muted Voices Heard
During the weekly shuras between U.S. forces and village elders, whenever questions on the status of women in the villages arose, tension mounted among the local men. This was perhaps due to a tribal and religiously orthodox chauvinism that seemed to assert that, in a business-like meeting between two male parties, women’s issues are not of importance.
Volume 2
The Journey to Freedom
It is known throughout Iran that one is not allowed to argue with the morality police, such a transgression can lead to imprisonment or even a death sentence. “I thought it was my last day,” the woman said heavily.
Volume 2
Dark is Divine
Dark Is Divine aims to rid society of the mindset that beauty comes only in white. It is a campaign that aims to transform Asia into a region where dark skin color is embraced as readily as light, to the point that the color of a woman’s skin ultimately has no importance.
Volume 2
Feminist Films
To reach the masses, films representing women should neither adopt an elitist approach nor opt for a mundane, superficial, and banal way of conveying themes.
Volume 1
When Women Break Down
In conflict, every fiber of a mother’s sense of being shudders into protective overdrive. She will push herself across her limits in order to defend her family, and to keep her men and children away from the fighting. This instinct knits societies together while so many of the other structures of civil and civic order collapse.
Volume 1
The Bride Price in Afghanistan
The bride price sparked competition between Zeba’s mother and aunt. Whose daughter was worth more? Zeba’s mother won the battle this round, but kept in mind that Zeba’s dowry set the precedent for future daughters.
Volume 1
Media and the Law
In Morocco, the laws will have to adjust to deal with the fact that women are building and supporting households, equal to their male counterparts. But developing a culture in which men and women are viewed as having equal human rights instead of one that holds the belief that a man is the one “who commands and should be obeyed” is very challenging.
Volume 1
Islam and Women’s Rights
Apologetic literature struggles, and seldom succeeds, to reconcile the gross abuse of women in many Muslim-majority societies with claims that Islam provides for and upholds the rights of women. The fact is, Islam teaches that no human being is superior to another and certainly no one can condemn another to abuse at his or her discretion, least of all because of race, gender, wealth, sexuality, or religious beliefs.