(click here for the full article, which also discusses Turkey’s only female Ramadan drummer). Excerpts:
…Each morning during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, an hour and a half before dawn, drummers tour the streets, hammering out a repetitive beat to wake people up to have their suhoor (pre-dawn meal) before dawn, when those who are […]
Almost half [45%] of urban Turkish women believe economic independence for women is unnecessary, and younger generations seem to share this view more than the older generations, according to [a newly published poll by the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey, or KAGIDER]. Almost 50 percent of women between ages 15 and 19 believed a woman’s […]
Excerpt from an article on the rise of Turkish soap operas, not only in Turkey, but the entire region (click for full article):
Turkish soap operas have lately become so popular in Middle Eastern countries that in this upcoming season, 18 soap operas will be airing in 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, […]
And where are the clerics decrying this? JW
Excerpted from the BBC (for full article, click here):
Sexual harassment of women in Egypt is on the increase and observing Islamic dress code is no deterrent, according to a survey published this week….
The findings contradict the widely held belief in Egypt that unveiled women are more likely to […]
Excerpts from article (for full article, click here):
Women and problems encountered by women are nowhere to be mentioned in the recently released draft of the National Program, an outline of reforms to be undertaken in an effort to bring Turkish legislation in line with EU standards, a pre-requisite to membership.
The more than 400-page blueprint promises […]
I’ve added qantara.de (”Dialogue With the Islamic World”) to my blogroll. It has excellent articles about the Islamic World and about Muslims in Europe. Their newest article is an interview with Orhan Pamuk. See also their dossier or selection of articles about the headscarf debate in various places in the world. (click here). The site […]
Open Democracy has posted a thought-provoking article, written by Kalypso Nikolaidis and Hakan Altinay, that argues that anti-EU Turkish secularists have it wrong. Secularists have gained a reputation as being opposed to the EU, preferring an authoritarian system that keeps religiosity in check to a liberal system that would allow religious conservatism free rein. The […]
From an article by Kristen Stevens, “Pious-Only Seats on the Bus”:
In Izmir recently, a minibus driver asked a woman I know, a teacher in her late 50s, to give her seat to a young headscarved woman who was unwilling to sit beside a man. The teacher refused. The implication was that the covered woman had […]
In this article in the Khaleej Times, a Syrian woman writes critically about the Turkish soap opera Nour that has been so spectacularly successful in the Arab world that a fetwa against it has been issued (it’s making women take a critical look at their marital relationships) — see my previous blog on this and […]
…A report released in late June by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) showed that a total of 94,219 people got divorced last year, slightly up from 93,489 in 2006. The divorce rate was highest in the Aegean region, followed by the Marmara region and western Anatolia. According to the report, 41 percent of couples that […]