I went to an all-girls school. I am the second of three girls in my family, and my closest friends are all women. I get women. I am good at navigating spaces with women and I cherish the deep bonds…

This is a typical millennial story, in the sense that it began on Twitter. Between the memes and the drama I saw a tweet about something called SheCodes. I hesitated at first but then I was like, why not, I’ve…

Divorce means the dissolution of marriage for a married couple. It’s a matter of course that in Pashtun culture, divorce is a stain which adheres to a woman’s reputation forever. But ‘halala’ is even worse than divorce. Halala transforms something…

As my male interviewee interrupts me for the third time in the same session, I ask myself: ‘Would he have done that if I were a man?’ I do not entertain that thought for long, because I must jot down…

From a young age, I remember being told that the Ka’bah was ‘Allah’s House’ and that this did not mean God lived there as we did in our homes – eating and washing and sleeping – but that this was…

A personal story Taking advantage of her small but sleek frame, she entered the crowded lift without hesitation, in spite of some people who were shaking their heads. She didn’t give it a thought: she knew the lifts were always…

Being a woman in the Arab Muslim world is not easy. Almost all Arab women of all backgrounds, classes, ages or even religions face some sort of sexism in their life – and I’m one of them. That is not…

I am now 87 years old. I have never understood regret. People ask me: ‘What are your regrets in life? I never know how to answer. I ask them, ‘What should I regret?’ Should I regret being born in an…

‘Ooh, you do have thick hair don’t you?’ the hairdresser said, as she ran a roller brush through a large lock of strands, twisting it outwards with a force that made my head jerk violently with it. ‘Yes it is…

One I’ve been helping a girl who has come out as an atheist to her family. Now her family back home want her back, but this girl is so strong and freedom means so much to her that she’d rather…

Hi Hana… this is a long shot, but would you be interested in continuity announcing? I had a quick Google. The email was referring to people who talk on the telly. Or rather, the ones who introduce, and then talk…

Early marriage is harmful: physically and mentally. Girls are married under the ages of 16 and 18. At an age when they should be studying, they are doing dishes, washing clothes, scrubbing floors and caring for a husband, their children…

Refugee women in Europe ‘They checked our whole bodies. Everything. They took our clothes. All the men could see us in our underwear. The staff just told the men to turn their faces to the other side. All the women…

The desperate story of a Muslim woman and a Trump-voter It was the first date of my life. I had spoken to him a few hours before on OK Cupid. I was 27, and carrying multiple rejections in the arranged…

Over the course of ten years and two relationships I have found myself crying in airplanes more often than what I assume to be the norm. As I write this, I am in fact on a domestic flight from Johannesburg…