Politics

By flogging women for wearing trousers, the Sudanese government has shown its fear of challenges to the status quo. As with all self-declared Islamic governments, what a woman wears becomes no longer an issue of religious modesty but one of audacity and defiance to a regime’s raison d’etre and authority.

The role of women cannot be underestimated in interethnic crisis occurring between Uighurs and Han Chinese in western China. They are protesters, leaders, and they reflect the unique development of Uighur society. And more broadly, these personalities have emerged from social and political marginalization.

Images are driving the Western response to the Iranian elections and, with reporting opportunities strictly limited in Iran, images carry the narrative. For a variety of reasons, many of them are focusing on young, attractive women. Here, Latoya Peterson wonders about complexities hidden behind the emerging icons.

While the defense of the rights of Muslim women from all faiths and from all corners of the globe is laudable, it’s important to call non-Muslims out on their privileges and prejudices about Muslim women’s lives and manifestations of faith, and the arrogance in how they speak about and interact with Muslim women.

As a secular nation, France has no right to espouse interpretations of any religion or delve into theological discussions of Islam in particular. But we should acknowledge that France’s discussion of a burqa ban stems from an internal need for Muslims to address outstanding, blatant inequities in religious interpretations.

I wish Muslim women didn’t need their own part in Barack Obama’s Cairo speech earlier this month. Many wondered whether Obama would take the safe route and avoid women’s rights. But that would have given a free pass to the denial and defensiveness of too many Muslims about the abuse of girls and women committed in the name of our religion.

In the traditional Arab mindset, men who do not fit the conventional ideal of manhood are regarded as inferior. As long as conservative circles continue successfully to equate female emancipation with male emaciation, the quest for gender equality will stall. What we need are mainstream, “average Mo” role models who demonstrate that believing in gender equality squares with being a man.

Four Kuwaiti women made history on May 17th by winning seats in their country’s parliamentary elections. Their victory was made all the more delicious because the fundamentalists who had long opposed women’s suffrage simultaneously lost several of their seats in the Kuwaiti parliament. And just as women faced down the fundamentalists in Kuwait, they will eventually win in Saudi Arabia.

Which is more important: a smart, caring, kind partner/wife, or a woman with an intact hymen? When we care more about a fuzzy idea of virginity than what kind of person a woman is, we have a seriously skewed idea of women, their value, and their sexuality. It’s time that all of us measure a woman by who she is, not what is (or isn’t) between her legs.