The British soap opera EastEnders is breaking new ground on gay issues by exploring what happens when Muslim boy meets boy – but marries girl. BBC television’s first gay Muslim, especially his first kiss, has been causing quite a stir. Although the love affair has not created the expected level of controversy, it has upset some Muslims.
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“Kalam Nawaem,” a sixty-minute Middle Eastern talk show based on the American TV show “The View,” has capitalized on the popularity of satellite television to reach the nearly half of women in the Arab world who are illiterate, offering viewers, particularly women, an opportunity to listen to sharp discussions on salient issues.
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As part of Altmuslimah’s efforts to explore gender themes that Islam has in common with other faiths, the star of ‘Blossom,’ Mayim Bialik, reflects here on how her Jewish faith and its concept of modesty (tzniut) changed the way she dresses.
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AK Comics has potential to bring something new to the comic book industry, especially with its two female characters, Jalila and Aya. But the writers need to break away from imitating mainstream American comic books and give Jalila and Aya their own identities as Middle-Eastern/Muslim super-heroines.
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Naif Al-Mutawa’s The 99 offers us arguably the best depictions of Muslim female characters to have ever appeared in comic books. One would hope that its realistic portrayals of Muslim women will help inspire more positive depictions of women in mainstream comic books.
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In the male-dominated world of comic books where female characters are depicted with large breasts and skimpy skin-tight clothing, it’s interesting to examine whether or not Dust, a Muslim female member of Marvel Comic’s X-Men since 2002, and other Muslim super-heroines, escape the sexual objectification and sexism that women often suffer in comic books.
Read MoreWhile dolls like Fulla and Razanne do offer an alternative to Barbie in Muslim societies, the dolls remain inherently consumerist and construct their own discourse of femininity. The Western concept of beauty, first introduced though Barbie, remains unchanged in these ethnic dolls. In the end, it’s about Barbie done differently to sell more stuff.
Read MoreRespecting Muslims means recognizing, on a foundation of human dignity, the humanity—and thus also the diversity—among those who are followers of Islam. It does not mean agreeing with every single one of them on every issue, which would mean simultaneously accepting contradictions. The recently released film The Stoning of Soraya M. is a case in point.
Read MoreMuslim women’s memoirs often deal with what it means to be pulled between the polar forces of East and West, and whether it is possible to find balance in the midst of that cultural intersection. Complicating this is a delicate balance between challenging the Western representations of Muslim women and avoiding painting an overly romantic picture of the East.
Read MoreAs Ayse Onal’s intensely disturbing book Honour Killing: Stories of Men Who Killed shows, honor killings are not merely a feminist issue. They reflect a larger problem with human social values, where men and women collude to defend a family’s honor. And through her interviews, Onal finds that the killer is often just as much a victim as the female he killed.
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