Mona Eltahawy is an Egyptian-born commentator and public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues. She reported on the Middle East for 10 years before moving to the U.S.

Cool and sexy Muslims...how about that?

June 03, 2010

I could not have dreamed up Rima Fakih if I had tried. 

Lessons learned as a 'volcano refugee'

April 22, 2010

When the volcano with the unpronounceable name erupted in Iceland, I was cocooned in Oxford, England, attending the Skoll World Forum, an annual conference for social entrepreneurs.

Plenty of work remains for gender equality

March 11, 2010

In 1995, I joined hundreds of women from around the world in Beijing, China, to attend the UN conference on women. It was the third conference of its kind after one in Mexico City and Nairobi, each a decade apart.

Putting female genital mutilation on the Davos agenda

January 28, 2010

Imagine if every year three million boys had their penises cut off. Sound outrageous?

Social media gives rise to the new iMuslims

January 05, 2010

You’ve seen their mugshots: A Nigerian charged with trying to blow up a plane on Christmas Day; five young American Muslims detained in Pakistan, apparently desperately seeking jihad.

What's Barbie wearing under her burka?

December 17, 2009

Authenticity has never been Barbie the doll’s strong suit. It’s estimated that if she were life sized, she would tip over because of the size of her breasts.

Step in right direction for Kuwaiti women

November 05, 2009

Within a week in October, Kuwaiti women won two small victories that were ­baby steps for womankind, but a nightmare come true for Muslim fundamentalists, who for decades blocked political rights for women.

Hot and bothered over fake hymens

October 23, 2009

Proving one more time that when it comes to Muslim women, it’s about headscarves and hymens — in other words, what’s on our heads and what’s between our legs — Egypt is hot and bothered over a Chinese device that fakes female virginity.

‘Birthday greetings’ for Saudi Arabia

September 24, 2009

Saudi Arabia has just turned 79. Relatively young, but old enough to know that it is morally disgraceful to treat women like children.

Sudan caught with its pants down

September 11, 2009

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The Sudanese regime surely didn’t reckon with the phenomenon of Lubna Hussein, the journalist arrested along with 12 others in Khartoum in July and charged with “indecency” for wearing trousers in public.

Women biggest losers in Afghan elections

August 27, 2009

Reports the Taliban sliced off the index fingers of two Afghan women who dared to vote in their elections last week were a reminder, if we needed any, who the polls’ biggest losers were.

Education or invasion? Take your pick against extremism

August 18, 2009

What’s a more potent antidote to extremism: Invasions and guns or money for schools?

Lashing out at Sudanese ‘fashion police’

August 13, 2009

What would you do if you were out with friends at a coffee shop, the police arrived and arrested you all for being “indecently dressed” — you’re wearing trousers — and decided your punishment was a public flogging: 40 lashes each?

These heroes are fearless, inspiring

July 31, 2009

Tina Turner was wrong — we do need another hero. Especially fearless women. As a special gift for my 42nd birthday I met two such women in Kuala Lumpur, where we were attending the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE), a program aimed at improving the status of Muslim women worldwide.

If only Uighurs were Buddhist

July 08, 2009

Pity the Uighurs — the wrong kind of minority fighting the wrong kind of enemy.

Right to full-body veil not a matter of religion

June 25, 2009

The full-body veil, called the burqa or niqab, terrifies me. I’m a Muslim woman who defends a woman’s choice to wear a headscarf — I wore one for nine years — but I will never defend the niqab. It embodies the erasure of a woman’s identity.

The heart versus head

June 05, 2009

George Bush could never have pulled it off. Give a speech that comfortably hopscotched between hot potato subjects, deftly shift from self-criticism to demanding the same of his audience and get at least 30 applause breaks from a mostly Muslim audience in Cairo, Egypt? Not in a million years.

Kuwaiti women inspire historic change

May 26, 2009

I love it when women put the fear of God into countries. That’s how I like to explain Saudi Arabia’s decision to delay municipal elections for two years.

Naiveté and international hypocrisy

April 23, 2009

If pirates were holding Nathalie Morin and her three children hostage would the Canadian government rescue her?

No faith in Afghan clerics

April 17, 2009

When Taliban gunmen shot dead prominent women’s rights activist Sitara Achakzai in Kandahar on Sunday, they had nothing to hide. It was broad daylight after all.

Afghan law about power, not culture

April 02, 2009

I thought I was used to seeing politicians bargain with each other.