NourHaha!

Circles are important. They wrap around pentagrams, friendship cliques, and lily pads. They are also the thoughts that run my brain at full speed, connecting things or attempting to make good points, coming to full circle. But what does that mean? And how do you deal when things don't make sense, or don't come to full circle because the information is missing, or you just don't know what to do? It was a Wednesday night during a chilly October. EMS arrives at the start of the show. What’s going on? The show is in full swing but everything seems so serious from the corner of my eye. Someone must be dying, why else are there nearly six medical emergency folks standing around looking concerned? In the background, you see a man gallivanting, frolicking really, in an out-of-this-world pace, having an I-am-on-something experience and bringing out the essence of the heavy metal music playing onstage. My friend and I burst out laughing. It was hard not to feel amused, EMT was lookin...

It’s a rainy morning to match the mood — staying in on Coming Out Day during October 11. It’s a day spent thinking about the young women I went to high school with, cousins, or global strangers I don’t know or haven’t met yet. Closeted lesbians and hetero-passing queers surround me, the unlucky ones created families they did not want and contributed their performative roles, part of a dysfunctional society. The lucky ones either live cautiously under the radar, or leave the country altogether if they are privileged enough to survive. No one knows their truth because the consequences of Coming Out are not worth it. Add in the seeded layers of domestic abuse and years of trauma. It’s okay if you’re not ready, or that you might never be. Sometimes even the smallest things can feel like the biggest wins. The hidden heroes who make our hearts flutter, they teach us that it can be our turn to amplify the voices of those who deserve justice. Don’t lower their volume. Heroes like Sarah Hegazi...

The pandemic was extra hard for you. Whether it forced you to become a baker , or forced you out of a job , it was even more difficult for families who got forced into full-time captivity indoors; the comfort of public safety nets can be all that families experiencing violence at home have. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month , which is a great time to think about what advocates are doing everyday to become a strong voice to those who are struggling. Being an advocate does not require a dramatic performance, it just needs you to care a little. It can be through donation, valuable volunteer work, education, or a support system for someone going through a bad time. In the US alone, a woman is assaulted every 9 seconds, what does that mean for the rest of the world? For survivors, most people can’t comprehend their experience, myself included. I can’t comprehend how leaving a dangerous environment is just not worth the consequences. Add in seeded layers of fear and years of ...

I am child-free by choice. When I was twelve, I remember listening to a relative who was talking about someone she knew who was struggling with her five children. Umbaih* , I said that was a lot of kids! Mom’s eyes widened because my response to this 70-something woman was probably extremely inappropriate by GCC standards. The audacity I had with not saying mashallah . But before mom could say anything, the woman laughed. She told me that she herself had twelve children. Whoa! She continued to say that this number was actually considered low for her time growing up. She said that women “pushed kids out by the darazen dozens” because “they had nothing else to do,” it was the way of life, how things are . I still think about those words, and how choice and agency would predict a different future not dictated by her oppressors who kept things that way. I didn’t need to look too hard at this woman to see what the unfair years have done to her. She is tired, drained, kept in her place by a...

A weekend in September 2017 was one like no other. It marked an incredible and herstorical day for women and girls in Saudi Arabia. Thousands of women took to the streets after midnight, flooding the roads and immersing themselves in the cruise. The law passed; women can now drive. Videos emerged of police officers who stood outside traffic stops with flowers for drivers who were women, extending their congratulations, sharing their happiness and excitement. Powerful changes of discourse are sensibly appearing as society’s readiness for women’s independence comes full circle. Popular social media influencers immediately took to their Snapchat and Instagram accounts to discuss their utter surprise when the Uber driver they requested happened to be a woman who showed up. A close Kuwaiti relative took a two hour road trip to embark herself on a journey where she was never allowed to before. She drove through new borders in support of this good news. Many Kuwaitis did...

Advocacy can take on many lanes or show up in different forms. Conversations happening offline and alongside Twitter, Reddit and other social feeds pour in generously everyday from those who are desperately chasing down justice on behalf of vulnerable, voiceless, or muted survivors with no real advocates in high places. Strength in numbers is the advocate’s road to solidarity. This is one way I think about building community by taking up space when I am reminded of the word "advocacy." Society has a tendency to preserve cultural values; traditions that have been passed down through generations and form our communities. Some cultural ideals translate into enforced ignorance and oppression. How do you escape that? Minority groups like women or expat labor workers, even if they technically take up more than half of a society's population, remain vulnerable under the systems that keep things that way. It takes a special kind of dignity to persevere so publicly...

As a collective community of women and allies who want to find solutions, we are consistently slapped by someone’s close-enough-to-smell-your-breath distance with their barrage of words, "Stop before you get in trouble," or "This isn't your problem, we don't suffer from that here."  So we lose our voices again, too afraid to respond, my fear fueled by ignorance. So I am back where I started, nowhere.  Like a cringe car crash that didn't need to happen, some of us have no choice but to pretend everything is just great, because being jailed is the alternative. In a country that pretends to have plenty of freedom, the mere notion of perceived negative criticism is viewed harshly; unpatriotic. Because really, all we should think about is how grateful we should be. Turn your face away from the potholes, the corruption, the horror. None of that matters because you have everything you need and live in a safe and free community. With the recent string of gender-...

To come from an upbringing where male individuals around you can practice several forms of power but be forbidden to exercise any of it for yourself is a form of entrapment. It is that way because one becomes compelled to think for themselves and commit the criminal act of attempted independence. An act punishable by law for most women in the Gulf region. Shaikha Latifah may have felt this frustration, even from the comfort of her own palace. There is no hierarchy of oppression, and everybody struggles differently. As a passion that was born out of a coping mechanism, she poured all her love into skydiving and caring for animals.  She is an experienced skydiver with accelerated freefall instructor ratings. As an outsider, this marvelous horse-riding princess doesn’t sound nor look suppressed. In fact, she is living her best life. But sounds and looks don’t matter as much as the seven-year escape and safety plans she had carefully calculated over the years. The escape plan was mist...

Advocacy can take on many lanes or show up in different forms. Conversations happening offline and alongside online Tweets are generously pouring in from those who so desperately seek justice for vulnerable survivors with no advocates. Strength in numbers is the advocate’s road to solidarity. This is one way advocacy is giving a new voice to the trans experience in Kuwait. Even though trans people undergo extensive and often complex changes including surgeries to finally feel like the gender they identify with, legal barriers fueled with public hate, and coupled with internalized shame, do not permit a wholesome transition. Article 198 of Kuwait’s Penal Code, which was amended in 2007, gives law enforcement the right to arrest those who “imitate the opposite sex.” Transgender individuals are virtually viewed as impostors who deserve criminal punishment. Their best bet is to avoid law enforcement at all costs, but even that does not guarantee amnesty. As for the legal writing...

Car manufacturers are increasing their advertising via televised platforms that promote their products to their target market. The critical observations in this report will analyze demographics, gender, storyline, type of humor, and effectiveness of 20 commercial ads to their target market. The commercial ads are taken from Youtube and iSpot, 10 of which are from BMW, and the other 10 from Lexus. These observations are analyzed from a marketing lens to conclude the extent to which they have effected their viewers. between quality and great value, both BMW and Lexus would fall under quality. these are not cheap cars. I chose these two brands for the analysis because even though both brands sell luxury cars to similar markets, both have interesting marketing campaigns that are unique to their brand. BMW premieres a storyline with (an increasingly) diverse representation, and Lexus has a narrowed focus on the car itself and its qualities. Lexus uses marketing pro...

Shifting Perceptions to Shift Gears High-profile women chipping away at the “cement ceiling” in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries that were interviewed for The Future of Women Leaders in the Middle East are Muna Abu Sulayman (secretary general of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation), Haifa Jamal AlLail (president of Effat University in Jeddah), Sheikha Hanadi Al Thani (Founder of Amwal, Qatar’s leading investment banking and asset management firm), Shaikha Lubna Al Qassimi (Minister of Foreign Trade for the UAE), Amina Al Rustamani (CEO of TECOM Business Parks), H.E. Fatima Al Jaber (COO of Al Jaber Group), Khawla Al-Kuraya (principal clinical scientist at the King Faisal Hospital and Research Center and director of the Research Center for Children’s Cancer), and Raja Al Gurg (Managing Director of Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group). Their comments posted around guardianship provided by education, work-life balance, mentorship, and family support are the means by which female leadership ...