By Mona Eltahawy Toronto Star December 18, 2010 NEW YORK CITY The young woman who identified herself as Salma, 17, got straight to the point. “I was walking in the street to get a bunch of friends of mine from a certain pet shop when a middle-aged man stopped with his car beside me and [...]

By Mona Eltahawy Dec. 10, 2010 I’m a Muslim. I’m a feminist. And I’m here to confuse you,” I told attendees at the TEDWomen conference, where I was a speaker, in Washington this week. The conversation on Muslim women usually revolves around our head scarves and our hymens — what’s on our heads (or not), [...]

By Mona Eltahawy The Jerusalem Report I was 23 years old and I was interviewing an Egyptian feminist who had just taken over as editor-in-chief of a women’s magazine of the cooking-and-fashion variety, which she had vowed to turn into the go-to magazine for women’s rights. I was excited to meet her because she was [...]

I’m excited and honoured to be a speaker at TEDWomen in December in DC. It’s great to be among so many inspiring and accomplished women.

By Mona Eltahawy Toronto Star Nov. 14, 2010 NEW YORK—It took years to make the United Nations’ newest agency, UN Women, a reality, and then just one day to effectively kill it. Death was effected by allowing onto its board a kingdom where women are not just infamously prohibited from driving but are also virtual [...]

By Mona Eltahawy The Jerusalem Report. Oct. 28, 2010 A WOMAN, COVERED head-to-toe in a black veil, appeared on Egyptian television this summer to drop a bombshell: two policemen, she said, had raped her. It’s unclear if she normally wears the niqab, the face veil, or if it served to protect her anonymity. But there [...]

Journalist Claire Berlinski and I recorded a conversation on women and Islam for Bloggingheads TV. The New York Times website excerpted a part of our conversation in which we discuss feminist interpretations of Islam and in which I mention Musawah, the global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. The whole conversation is [...]

I was honoured to receive the Anna Lindh Journalism Award for Outstanding Professional Contribution at a ceremony in Monaco on Oct. 14. It was especially thrilling to receive the foundation’s special award along with veteran French journalist and editor Jean Daniel who received a Lifetime Achievement Award. It was the first time the foundation gave [...]

By Mona Eltahawy Common Ground News Service Sept. 14, 2010 New York – I have developed an overwhelming urge to tell everyone I meet I’m a Muslim. As a Muslim woman who doesn’t wear a headscarf, I’m often mistaken for a Latina and other ethnicities that my features match. But as anti-Muslim sentiment has risen [...]

Every day during Ramadan, I shared a book from my shelves which has influences me and helped me on my journey towards a better understanding of Islam and faith. Here are the recommendations compiled into one list: Day 1 recommendation: “Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari’a” by Abdullahi An-Nai’m. The Quran [...]

By Mona Eltahawy IslamComment Sept. 13, 2010 I’m a big fan of offense. It was offense that drew me to Park51, the proposed Islamic community centre and mosque in Lower Manhattan, two blocks from Ground Zero. But not for the reasons you think. For once, Muslims are not the ones offended but the ones being [...]

By Mona Eltahawy Toronto Star Sept. 10, 2010 Offence drew me to Park51, the proposed Islamic community centre and mosque in Lower Manhattan, two blocks from Ground Zero. But not for the reasons you think. For once, Muslims are not the ones offended but the ones being accused of offence by choosing to build Park51 [...]

Common Ground News Service Sept. 7, 2010 I live in Harlem on a street that is home to three churches and a mosque. The mosque is next door to one of those churches and when male congregants mingle on the sidewalk, it’s impossible to tell who had just been in church and who in the [...]

I spoke to Voice of America about the impact social media are having in the Arab world.

By Mona Eltahawy Saturday, August 7, 2010; A13 Washington Post Khaled Said is not the first Egyptian whom police allegedly beat to death. But his death has sparked a virtual revolution that is affecting Egypt’s tightly controlled society. Said, a 28-year-old Egyptian businessman, was brutally beaten, his family and activists say, by two plainclothes police [...]

I was on BBC Newshour talking about an Egyptian woman who appeared on television to accuse two policemen of raping her. The segment starts at 38.46 mins. For Arabic speakers, here’s the TV clip of the woman.

American-Muslim journalist Souheila Al Jadda and I discussed France’s ban on niqab on USA Today video.

By Mona Eltahawy The Jerusalem Report Aug. 16, 2010 The world is a lonelier place when we lose a hero. When I learned of Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid’s passing on July 5, my tears mourned the loss of a man who spent the past 14 years exiled from his beloved Egypt because his courageous work [...]

I was on Russia Today’s “Crosstalk” to discuss bans on face veils with Myriam Francois-Cerrah, of the Oxford Islamic Society, and Sihem Habchi, president of Ni Putes Ni Soumises. Another Muslim woman (who works with the French businessman who has offered to set up a fund to pay fines incurred by women who wear niqab) [...]

I was on Boston’s NPR affiliate WBUR to discuss face veils with Heba Ahmed, an Egyptian-American woman who wears the niqab. We’re on at 5 – 20 mins.