A campaign to make Istanbul’s roughly 3,100 mosques more welcoming for women could set off a gender revolution in Turkey’s places of Islamic worship – and one that may not be uniformly welcomed.
Golzadeh Hosseini strikes an odd figure, sitting on one of the Afghan Military Training Academy’s plush couches in her US-issued military uniform. Blonde highlights, pink lipstick, plucked eyebrows and a black veil top off her desert camouflage uniform.
As Georgia rushes to embrace Western ways, a cultural taboo on sex before marriage for women is one tradition that is still holding strong. And even while acknowledging the macho tenets that shape it, the taboo is one tradition that many Georgian women from all walks of life say they do not want to buck.
