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Originally posted on Amanda Mininger:
One of my closest friends turned 40 today. I’ve been thinking about this one, trying to figure out why we put this much significance on a birthday, why we decorate this particular mile marker with lights and flowers and well-meaning phrases full of pith, borrowed from antiquity or Sex in the City, one of the two. I’ve had this conversation before with friends in their late 30s and early 40s, and we all say the same thing: “I don’t feel 40. I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like, but whatever it is, I don’t feel it. Does it mean we have to wear longer skirts now?” Whatever cause for contemplation there is, I’ll take the bait. I know that, at minimum, turning 40 gives us permission to take stock and see where we are, to ask of ourselves: What have I learned (if anything?) What have I gained or lost? What am I…

Originally posted on iramramzan:
I don’t know about you all, but I’m getting rather bored of the I-love-my-hijab sentiments now. It means, unfortunately, you have to put up with my lengthy rants. The Guardian (who else) recently posted a video in which Hanna Yusuf asks, in a tone usually reserved for naughty schoolchildren, “why a simple piece of clothing is seen as the very epitome of oppression.” She goes on to say that “many women find empowerment in rejecting the idea that women can be reduced to their sexual allure – and we should not assume that every women who wears the hijab has been forced into it.” I was not aware there was so much outrage against the hijab. In this country, where the (visible) Muslim population has grown, the headscarf is not really that controversial, as opposed to the full face veil – niqab – which is seen even by many Muslims as extreme. Let us tackle the…