Here is a nice piece from HuffPo that tries to understand why Muslim women wear the hijab. I think it is still a bit essentializing, but overall is very good.
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Child Marriage in Arabia
Brian’s comments are spot on. What is this reform of which you speak? After public outcry over the marriage of an 8-year-old to a 50-year-old, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Justice has vowed action: “The justice ministry aims to put an end to arbitrariness by parents and guardians in marrying off minor girls’, Justice Minister Mohammad Al Eisa told Al Watan newspaper, partially owned by members of the royal family… “The minister’s comments suggested the practice of marrying off young girls would not be abolished. The regulations will seek to ‘preserve the rights, fending off blights to end the negative aspects…
The New Orientalists
An upcoming article talks about lenses used to describe the lives of Muslim women (via Law and Humanities Blog): "Popular narratives produced from the west, particularly since 9/11, perpetuate negative stereotypes about Middle Eastern Muslim women. Native writers settled in the west also dish out heart-rending tales of women's oppression in fundamentalist Islamic societies, targeting a western audience long fed on tales of Islam's intolerance towards women. These 'New Orientalist' narratives, portraying Muslim women as hapless victims of Islamic fundamentalism, only serve to reinforce the stereotypes entrenched in popular western imagination. With Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran as a…
Irtiqa: Blogging from Pakistan: Female Cabbie and “Firefly” video
Irtiqa: Blogging from Pakistan: Female Cabbie and “Firefly” video. The article provides just a glimpse of the class and gender struggles in Pakistan. But then again, Pakistan has a history of amazing women leading from the front on issues of human rights and gender equality, and now even the blasphemy law (for example, the indomitable Asma Jahangir, Mukhtaran Mai, Shereen Rehman, etc.).