Mideast Women

Afghan Women Continue To Move Forward

Empowering Women: An Interview with Vital Voices’ Alyse Nelson

Alyse Nelson, president and CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership, has worked with women leaders to develop training programs and international forums in over 140 countries, serving a network of over 12,000 women worldwide. This week Nelson launched her new book, Vital Voices: The Power of Women Leading Change Around the World, which draws on the history of the organization’s work with women around the world, focuses on key elements of Vital Voices’ five-step model of transformational leadership, and features interviews and first-hand accounts from prominent women leaders including Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Prize-winning Burmese pro-democracy leader. Nelson recently spoke to Aslan Media about Vital Voices, women trailblazers in the Middle East, and how women are redefining leadership.

From Uniquely Muslim to Mundanely Global: Rethinking Gender-Based Violence in the Middle East

Honor killings, female genital mutilation, and most recently marriage rape laws: What do all of these practices have in common? With the proliferation of books and articles on the rights abuses suffered by Muslim women, one would think these practices are exclusive to Islam. Mona el Tahawy's, “Why They Hate Us”, in Foreign Policy’s recent issue, and the ensuing Twitter-storm that ensued is a recent example. It illustrates the media's insatiable appetite for fixating on the plight of Muslim women — as though it is somehow uniquely worse and disconnected from worldwide struggles around gender equity and social justice.

Aslan Media Launches Women’s Section! Letter From the Editor

The War on Women. In the US, we’ve seen these words splashed across television screens and give life to many a headline in recent months. The GOP’s offensive against abortion, family planning, low-income women young and old, and efforts to redefine rape are just a few examples of the war being waged on women and their bodies in our progressive but gendered democracy.

What is the difference between an American right-wing radio giant publicly calling a woman a prostitute for exercising her right to speak out on a policy issue that involves her body and an Egyptian military general essentially saying that female protesters subjected to ‘virginity tests’ or sexual assault got what was coming to them for having the audacity to take a stand? There is none.

In 2012, ground zero of the war on women lays claim to the entire world.

Bothaina the Bold: The Woman Who Sought the Egyptian Presidency

Bothaina Kamel, ex-wife of a former culture minister, television presenter, and activist, made a historic bid for the Egyptian presidency cementing a legacy of possibility for women across the Middle East in the wake of an ongoing Arab Awakening. Nonetheless, her campaign was widely discredited by the media and generally acknowledged as the dark horse of the Egyptian presidential election. A lack of critical support for Kamel’s candidacy led to her withdrawal from the election slated to take place this month. In an exclusive interview with Aslan Media before pulling out of the race a few weeks ago, the candidate spoke to us about why she was running, the evolving face of women’s rights in Egypt, and her hopes for the country.

Iman Bibars and WISE Women Entrepreneurs

Iman Bibars, Vice President of Ashoka Global and Regional Director of Ashoka Arab World, is a leading expert in the field of social entrepreneurship, with particular focus on women’s development issues. The author of several books on gender issues including Victims and Heroines: Women, Welfare, and the Egyptian State and The Women of Tahrir, Bibars established the Women’s Initiative for Social Entrepreneurship, a program to foster social entrepreneurship among young women. Iman recently spoke to Aslan Media about Ashoka, social development, the Middle East, and the future.