March marks the commemoration of Women’s History Month and the recognition of International Women’s Day - a time to reflect on the progress that women around the world have experienced over time in gaining rights. Yet, the gender divide still rages on for many communities - especially in American mosques. 

An anti-capitalist French political party has fielded a young female activist to run in the upcoming regional elections in Vaucluse. The decision has both right and left-wing politicians up in arms. The reason? The candidate, Ilham Moussaid, wears the hijab. 

There is nothing that irks me more than a self-denying Arab - the kind of person who thinks that “Arab” is a dirty word, a label they don’t care to stoop beneath. I’ve met Egyptians who claim to be a race of their own - the same pure “Egyptian” race that Cleopatra and King Tut belong to. I once even met a girl from Lebanon who bristled with offense when I mentioned something about the two of us being Arab. ”I am not Arab,” she proclaimed. “I am Phoenician.” Yeah right, and I’m the granddaughter of Nefertiti. 

You know what I just can’t understand? Women who bring their beleaguered husbands and boyfriends shopping with them. These men walk around the mall as if they are being led into Hell itself. Especially the poor souls lingering awkwardly in lingerie shops, not wanting to look in any particular direction in case, who then inadvertently meet the eye of some lady holding panties up for size. 

Oh France, you have done it again. After attempts to ban the hijab, the burqa, and the niqab - as visible symbols of the “Islamification” of the precious French (i.e. white) identity - there is a new controversy that finds French Muslims unwillingly pitted against their non-Muslim countrymen.

Western club-goers have been partying to Middle Eastern music for years. When you thought you were grooving to Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin,” you were really dancing to Abdel Halim Hafez’s “Khosara.” Listen to Aaliyah’s “More Than a Woman” and then compare it to Mayad El Hennawi’s “Aloly Ensi.” Sound familiar? Someone even made an entire YouTube clip about how producer Timbaland rips off Middle Eastern artists. But I personally dig that classical Arabic music is constantly being innovated and revamped in contemporary Western music. 

The project, a collaboration between the Alliance for Justice in the Middle East at Harvard University and the MIT Center for Future Civic Media, was launched in response to the horrific Israeli attack on Gaza last December-January and the subsequent and ongoing siege on Palestinians living there. 

Was anyone else pleasantly surprised to see some Mooselims walking in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics last week? I think all those stereotypes of Muslims as desert-dwellers must have infiltrated my brain, because my first thought was actually: “What the heck are those Muslims doing competing in the snow?!” But of course Muslims live all over the world - near mountains and rivers and plains (we really are everywhere. Bwahaha!). I watched the ceremony in a restaurant and I think I alarmed everyone around me by whooping my support for Morocco, Algeria, Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran. 

Jennie Goldstein and Mariel (real name: Mary Eleanor Theresa Katherine Francis!) Davis are two very nice white girls. They are from the Upper West Side and New Jersey, respectively, and have interests like the French language and musical theater. They went to good colleges and have friends who went on to become investment bankers and law students. But not Jennie and Mariel - oh no, these ladies took a most unexpected path after graduation; they work with me at an Arab-American (and predominantly Muslim) non-profit. How did two such nice white girls end up working with the Muslims?  And what is it like for them now that they’ve infiltrated our world? They give elan the inside scoop. 

Remember when all President Barack Obama had to do to get the Nobel Peace Prize was step foot inside the White House?  Well, now the man already has a statue of himself - a bronze likeness of Obama as an eight-year-old boy. I thought there was an unspoken international rule about making statues for people - like that the person had to be at least 80 years old or something? I guess all the prizes and statues just seem a little preemptive to me.