sister-hood is an award-winning digital magazine spotlighting the diverse voices of women of Muslim heritage.
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On first words and first periods. First words are a lie. We don’t suddenly find words falling out of our mouths as infants. We don’t suddenly gain the ability to make sense. I learned that through spending six months with…
Fighting injustice begins within our own communities. It is true: one person can change the world. It begins with you and your surroundings. It’s time to take a stand for what you believe in and allow your voice to be…
‘Our lives have been ruined, we cannot show our face in polite society, your sister’s marriage prospects were ruined, and your brother has been forever lost. Why did you do this to us? All to have fun roaming around with…
I was born on the west coast of Turkey, in Izmir: one of the least conservative and most secular cities in Turkey. I was registered as a Muslim. That’s how it works in Turkey; as soon as you’re born, your…
After spending some of my pre-teen years in Karachi, Pakistan, I learnt that beauty was simple: fair meant beautiful, hairy meant ugly. This is an inconvenient truth, that can be corroborated by most South Asian and Middle-Eastern women. The goal…
Purdah means to seclude oneself from others, to wear enveloping clothing, to veil; it also means curtains. Burqa, niqab and hijab are all forms of the practice of Purdah. My interest in Purdah was activated after a powerful visual encounter…
Whilst everyone was wishing her Happy Birthday, I suddenly realised that she was a married woman. She had just turned 18 but had been married off at the age of 16 to a guy who was over 35. My family…
Leaving Islam is hard, but leaving god is even harder. Imagine the night sky: filled with shiny stars getting closer to you. With each movement, one star appears brighter and bigger till you can no longer make sense of the…
It is legend, nay fact, that the skin-lightening treatment Fair & Lovely has drawn the Desi community into a spiralling storm. Since its introduction by Unilever in 1975, Fair & Lovely has always been full of promise. A promise as…
‘Just an orange juice please’, I said as I fumbled around in my purse for £2.85 to pay the bartender, which quite frankly was ridiculous. I could’ve bought an entire carton of orange juice for £2.00. I was at the…
I write my blog, mylifeasanimposter.com, using the moniker Nadia Hadid. I am not strictly anonymous, but when speaking so openly about my personal life and my dating experiences as a British Pakistani Muslim woman and my interfaith life with my…
The year was 2008. I was a 20-year old virgin starting my second year of university in Ontario, living on residence: away from my family, and in search of love. As a Pakistani Canadian immigrant, I had a checklist of…
I grew up in a conservative Muslim Somali family. But they hadn’t always been like that. Previously, Somali people were freer, and women had more rights, although now, looking back, it is hard to imagine. When I was young, my…
A few weeks ago, I went up to New York for a concert, a ‘show,’ really, in the middle of the week. I bought tickets to the event the day they went on sale, sitting in my office at 10am,…
Last week we enjoyed a whole week full of workshops, conferences and panels during the Pride Week in Istanbul. However, when it came to the closing Pride March , the most visible event, the government declared a ban just the…
sister-hood is a digital magazine and a series of live events. We create platforms for women of Muslim heritage to speak for themselves, rather than being spoken for or spoken about. sister-hood challenges stereotypes and promotes the fearless, progressive, creative voices of women of Muslim heritage.