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-