Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/tag/arabic/)
In a conservative Syrian town where women are discouraged from going out alone, young women are knocking on doors to recruit others to the resistance. They estimate a couple hundred women have joined a struggle that, nationwide, just claimed over 100 lives in 48 hours.
The Middle East might be more restrictive for women in some ways, but two notable Muslim female comics–Eman El-Husseini and Maysoon Zayid–find it easier to work there than in the United States. One exception: Saudi Arabia.
“El Clon” is a tele-drama about a young woman’s effort to span her cultural and personal identities across modern and traditional Muslim societies. One New York fan says it offers great fodder for cross-cultural exchange.
A Saudi academic and a Moroccan politician outline what Arab women need. The list includes more translations of Western research to overcome regional isolation and longer careers. The academic also says women everywhere are facing a “happiness gender gap.”
A member of a Moroccan delegation in New York this month described a secret detention center in southwestern Algeria for mothers whose only crime was being unwed. The story’s political backdrop is a complicated territorial dispute in Western Sahara.
Saudi women’s rights activists are pressing for reforms to lift the sharp restrictions they face in their conservative society. Some believe the time has finally come and they will soon have the right to drive.
A text message from a woman locked in a bathroom and a call about Uzbeki trafficking victims at the airport are routine for women running a shelter and hotline in booming Dubai. Fifth in a series on women and Islam.
Elite Arab businesswomen are making headway. Yet, advocates say many rural women need more education and work opportunities to cope with the region’s unrest and hardship.
As violence continues to spread in the Arab world, women gathered for a three-day conference in Beirut to share patches of progress–mainly in political representation–toward implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action in the Arab world.
Proceeds of the first public staging of “The Vagina Monologues” in Egypt last week will go toward one of the few battered-women’s shelters in the Middle East. The performances drew overflow crowds and some public censure.