Dubai has employed its first female train driver. In fact, Mariam Al Safar is the first woman to be employed as a train driver in the whole of the Middle East. Ms. Al Safar is in charge of the whole train – she has the skills to drive the train but because the system is ...
Anis Hidayah is an Indonesian lawyer fighting for the rights of Asian immigrant workers who are often treated as slaves and forced to endure physical and sexual abuse around the world. She first got involved in this when she was a young law student and learned about a woman being raped by her employer in ...
Saudi Arabia’s 88-year-old king gave women the right to vote and to run in municipal elections on Sunday. This is a big step towards equality, although women will have more power in theory rather than in practice. They won’t be able to vote until 2015 and will be barred from next week’s elections. It’s disappointing ...
Women are becoming increasingly proactive in their fight against domestic violence and sexual harassment. Led by Rebecca Chiao, a group of Cairo women are using “new media and old-fashioned community action” to take a proactive stance on sex crimes in Egypt. Assisted by Canada’s International Development Research Centre, HarassMap “lets women report incidents that might ...
As Saudi women fight for the right to drive so they can move independently, Qatar seems to be going the opposite direction in terms of its opinion of women’s status. On Thursday, the first women only cinema in the Middle East will open in Doha, in the Aspire Zone Foundation Ladies Club, a government-backed sports ...
Saudi Arabian women’s freedom is limited more than in any other country. They cannot vote, they cannot leave the country, and most of them are not part of the workforce. Perhaps one of the most limiting restrictions Saudi women face is that they are not allowed to drive. Today, hundreds of Saudi women will protest ...
As with most teenagers rearing for wheels, I remember how excited I was to get my learner’s permit when I turned 16. Most of us take being able to drive for granted, but Saudi women are still fighting for their right. Women2Drive has been campaigning to teach Saudi women how to drive, and the issue ...
Nine “honour killings” occurred in the West Bank last year, along with 20 in Jordan. Women are murdered to save the honour of their family, while the idea of treating men the same way is unthinkable. Palestinian college student Aya Baradiya was murdered last month by her uncle and two other men. Her uncle admitted ...
Kathleen Parker is pissed off that foreign policy takes women completely out of the equation. It’s not just the government that think this way, working as a journalist in the Middle East I was constantly told that stories about women were just not important enough to make the paper (presumably on the assumption that it ...
Feminists have long complained that being a mother is a full-time job and that the man-hours spent in the home are not counted by economists. Now women can get bachelor degrees in professional mothering from The University College for Mothering and Family Science, located in the United Arab Emirates. There is concern in the country ...
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There has been an upswing in royal fever on both sides of the Atlantic since last April. When Kate...
Dear Madame X, I know you say that it’s not good to fake your orgasms, but what if you...
It is one of the oldest institutions in the world. Most humans are actively engaged in it as I...
Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort...
Usually getting fired is a bad thing. But, somehow, this woman is happy about it. Can you imagine...
My attention was drawn this week to an article on the resurgence of the market for men’s underwear. It...
