By This year’s Muslim Women’s Day theme was the “The Digitization of Muslim Women and Girls”. We advocate for how digital platforms have significantly aided the empowerment of Muslim women throughout the globe across a variety of spaces and possibilities. This year, Muslim Women’s Day featured models, athletes, content creators, artists and beyond to highlight their stories and achievements on the medium responsible for platforming experiences we don’t always get to hear about: the internet.
Muslim Women’s Day was established by Muslim Girl founder, Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, on March 27, 2017, as a day designed to uplift voices belonging to Muslim women where their narratives are celebrated, and to “engineer a new precedent for Muslim women’s representation in mainstream media,” Al-Khatahtbeh said in an interview for CNN.
After a powerful day of recognizing the Muslim Women to Watch of 2023, here are some highlights of how Muslim Women’s Day and digitization have come together to create safe spaces for Muslim women globally:
Muslim Girl x SoHo House Iftar
To celebrate the auspicious occasion of Muslim Women’s Day, Muslim Girl partnered with Soho House in New York City to host our annual Muslim Girl Iftar, our first in-person program after the COVID-19 lockdown and Soho House New York’s first iftar event. It was attended by transformative Muslim Women’s Day partners, notable guests and allies, and concluded with a talk with model Halima Aden.
Muslim Women’s Day and the United Nations
Muslim Women’s Day 2023 brought about a significant event in the campaign’s history when, for the first time ever, the momentous day aligned with the UN Women by adopting this year’s International Women’s Day theme of “the digitization of women and girls.” Cooperating with various agencies at the United Nations, the collective efforts brought forward during Muslim Women’s Day helped make progress in the representation of Muslim women in digital spaces for social development, with a focus on three core areas where change is needed immediately:
- Improving digital literacy
- The representation of women the in the digital world
- The arena of digitization and equal employment
KODE WITH KLOSSY CODING SUMMER CAMP
Muslim Girl teamed up with Kode With Klossy to reserve two seats specifically for Muslim women who want to enter the arenas of technology and coding. This partnership is a powerful personification of this year’s theme of digitization because not only do we need more Muslim women in tech, but by learning and honing these skills, Muslim women can continue creating spaces that will serve their needs on their own terms.
Kode With Klossy is an initiative designed to provide “young women and gender expansive youth between the ages of 13-18,” programs that teach how to build a website, and mobile applications, analyze data science, and even artificial intelligence learning.
Editorial Takeover
The biggest highlight of Muslim Women’s Day every year is our core call to action from day one — to flood the internet with original content centering the voices of Muslim women online. Muslim writers across the globe look forward to the opportunity of being represented on mainstream platforms and seeing a reflection of themselves on their favorite digital outlets, with 2023 seeing new writers get their first Muslim Women’s Day bylines. This could only be possible by working with the best partners in the world that uphold the pledge to elevating Muslim women’s representation in every way. We salute every partner that makes this global campaign the global force that it’s become.
We are proud to dedicate our 2023 campaign to advocating for women around the world to have access to digital platforms such as social media to voice what matters to them. Digitization can truly impact the way we receive and perceive information, which makes it all more important that Muslim women to lead the conversation. Here’s to reshaping the digital landscape for underrepresented women and girls for generations to come.