Out of the Mouths of Babes: Inclusion from Muslim Girl Magazine
by guest contributor Zeynab, originally published at Muslima Media Watch
If you look at the Muslim Girl’s website, it features the current month’s cover, as well as past covers. The covers all look like this: a happy, smiling young lady in modest dress.
The difference among the covers? Some of them feature a girl with a headscarf, and some don’t. Now, looking on the website at the features within the magazine, it appears that there is an equal distribution of women with and without headscarves, and an equal distribution of ethnicities in the models. Which makes me genuinely happy! And while the magazine still uses thinner models, I’m happy to take what I can get for now.
Despite having different publishers, today’s Muslim Girl subscribers might be tomorrow’s Azizah subscribers. But Azizah has a strict “no hejab = no cover photo” policy. It’s not stated on the website, but every back issue has the woman’s hair covered, even though they feature bihejabis in the magazine. Azizah’s website also doesn’t feature a single bihejabi in the website’s pictures. The magazine has an excellent record of ethnic diversity, but Azizah seems to think the only real Muslim is one who covers her hair. This is exclusionary and patronizing to Muslim women who do not cover their hair for whatever reason, and Muslim Girl seems to be avoiding this skillfully.
Muslim Girl looks perfect on the surface: their features promote different types of modesty, ethnic diversity, and awareness of international events and local issues of interest to Muslims. At a glance, Muslim Girl seems to be touting a different, more inclusive agenda that Azizah. Let’s hope that when Muslim Girl grows up, she brings her inclusive politics with her.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
mireille wrote:
I’m glad to hear this! The site looks really progressive, substantive and, dare I say it, cool. The girls in the fashion spreads look like the fashion forward women in hejab in my classes and there is a lot more ethnic diversity on one little page of Muslim Girl than you would find in the entirety of any other teen man. Plus: Harry Potter love. This makes my day.
Posted 06 Sep 2007 at 8:37 am ¶
mags wrote:
On a bus trip, I sat in the middle of a Muslim family, whose adorable daughter read a few of these. It did seem very inclusive and sweet. I believe one issue had an interview with some young girl with her quote bolded over the picture: “I don’t think it matters what religion or colour I am, it just matters that I am a good person.” Or something like that.
Posted 09 Sep 2007 at 10:27 am ¶
Muslim Mother wrote:
A deeper look into the content, publishers, and methods of producing this magazine is needed by all Muslim parents.
Don’t get caught up in the hijab/non-hijab issue, there are far greater problems with this magazine:
1. Who publishes a magazine for such a small demographic without hemorrhaging money left and right? The cost of manufacturing the magazine far outstretches their advertising revenue. There are serious dollars behind this magazine and they are not forthcoming about where the money comes from. There is isn’t a single slick magazine like this for the Muslim community that isn’t subsidized by another entity, i.e. Islamica operates on a grant from Jordan. Aziza magazine struggles to publish once or twice a year, because they honestly produce their magazine from the procedes of advertising and subscriptions. I’ll bet the publisher still hasn’t made a dollar yet she persists out of love for her community. Muslim Girl has virtually no advertisers, they are not honest when they report they have 25,000 subscribers, (certainly they do not have 25K paid Muslim girl subscribers). There were hundreds of thousands of dollars spent before they even published the first issue. I can’t fathom any investor who would risk this much money for a market that has virtually no spending power and would attract virtually no advertisers. Do you see Apple, or Brittney Spears’ record label, or cosmetic companies lining up to advertise to Muslim girls? Yeah, fat chance.
2. Their models are primarily photographed by male photographers. Is it an Islamic practice for a young, beautiful Muslim girl to pose for an unrelated (and most often non-Muslim) male photorgrapher?
3. The advice often given is one of compromise and apology. “Gee, it’s hard being a Muslim girl, here’s how to get through life in spite of it…” Sad.
4. They review media that would mostly be considered inappropriate or even anti-Muslim, i.e. the Fox show, 24. What is up with that?
Please read between the lines of this magazine, there’s a lot more than one sees just flipping through the glossy, expensive pages.
If you want to ruin a society, corrupt its youth.
Posted 12 Sep 2007 at 12:14 pm ¶
Zeynab wrote:
Salaam, Muslim Mother. While I’m glad you’re looking at the magazine critically (as we should with all media), I think that you’re missing the point of my post. What I’m happy about is that the magazine is inclusive of ALL Muslim girls. Many Muslim teens feel excluded from mainstream American society. Unfortunately, our own Muslim communities alienate some of these teens even further if they do not wear hejab. But Muslim girls’ inclusion of both hejabi and bihejabi girls sends a positive message.
In reponse to #2, these girls are modestly clothed and aren’t posing in any sexually explicit poses. What’s haram about that? And how do you know all the photographers are male? How do you know that all the readers of this magazine are female? I don’t see anywhere in the Holy Qur’an that hints at this being unacceptable. You may have cultural issues with it, but it’s not unIslamic because these girls are modestly dressed.
In response to your #3, this magazine is geared towards U.S. Muslims. And it IS hard being a Muslim woman in the U.S., or any country where Muslims are not the majority and Muslims are viewed as a threat.
In response to #4, they review stuff that teens watch. I agree that 24 is an anti-Muslim show, but some teens might watch it. And how is Harry Potter inappropriate?
I don’t really know what to tell you about the publishers, because that wasn’t what I focused my article about and I haven’t researched that in depth. But I can tell you that teens don’t get values from magazines, they get them from their parents. So if your daughter reads about 24 inMuslim Girl and wants to watch it, it’s your job as a parent to tell her why you feel she shouldn’t watch the show, or why the show has anti-Muslim sentiments. Simple.
Posted 12 Sep 2007 at 4:21 pm ¶
SolShine7 wrote:
Cool. I wrote a post about Muslim Girl magazine on my blog at http://solshine7.blogspot.com/2007/11/muslim-girl-magazine.html
Posted 11 Dec 2007 at 4:14 pm ¶