Yasmine Mohammed Podcast

Elnaz is an Iranian American women’s rights activist born and raised in Iran where she graduated as an engineer and was a business owner. She moved to the US in 2008 and worked in Tech companies including Google for more than a decade. After a decade in America, she decided to become vocal about the treatment of women by the Islamic Republic of Iran: she produced a weekly podcast with Women for Sustainable Freedom & Equality, held workshops on creating content for Iranian activists and worked closely with journalist and activist Masih Alinejad. Now, Elnaz is busy caring for her newborn daughter, Roshan, who was born a week after Iranian #WomanLifeFreedom revolution, working in a local FM radio station and writing to echo the voice of Iranian women in the world.

For this very special episode of Forgotten Feminists, I will be speaking with a woman who certainly is not, and never can be, forgotten: Asra Nomani. Asra is a journalist, author, activist and one of my personal heroines and mentors. Asra is a woman of tiny stature who takes on the most goliath of fights against Islamic extremism and secular extremism as manifested today in what is referred to as "woke". Asra will talk to us about her life, her close encounters with terrorists, her activism, and her latest book: Woke Army - a book that uncovers the close links in America between Muslim and Woke organizations.

Anne was raised by a Palestinian father and American convert mother. However, unlike most American girls, she was homeschooled and forced into hijab. Her suffocating home life pushed her to attempt suicide at 17. When she was hospitalized, it was the first time in her life that she’d spent the night free from the grip of her family. “I came away from that experience with a single conclusion: I was going to leave this house in a body bag if I didn’t find a way out”. Join me and Anne to hear about her nail-biting escape and her life of success and freedom today.

When Deb was 19, she escaped the cult her mother had joined when she was 11. After eight years trapped in a cult, she was alone. She had zero life skills, no money, and no place to live. She was terrified, but she was free. She knew she would make it; she just didn’t know how! Eventually she married a Muslim man and had a son. Her son is a conservative Muslim living in the UAE where his wife and daughter are required to wear hijab. Join me to talk with Deb on her very tumultuous life and what she is doing today to support others who are cult survivors. "My voice was silenced in the cult, so now I speak, tell my story, connect with others and hope that by doing so, others who felt alone and were silenced find advocacy and are able to speak and tell their stories too." Thank you for watching the video, Deb D: Escaping A Methodist Cult And Marriage To A Muslim by Yasmine Mohammed and get to know more about it.

Dorothea grew up in the UK to a Pakistani family. Her independent spirit and determination was always a hinderance to her family and community around her. But yet, she persisted. Today Dorothea is able to let her authentic self shine in her life without restrictions. She uses her negative past experiences to inform her important work as as a healthy relationship and harmful traditional practices consultant. She has over a decades practice experience working with victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence, honour crimes and forced marriage.

Nada, author of Gaslight Avenue: Based on a True Hummus Story, upset the town when she swam against the tide. Now this Palestinian-born Canadian writer and womanist is addicted to helping other women reckon with the same patriarchal world she escaped from to live their best lives with full bodily autonomy, free of religious toxicity, misogyny, and conformity.

Lina grew up a minority Christian in Cairo, Egypt. Frustrated with the sexist society around her, she moved to Canada in her 20s. Here she discovered that, in the name of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, people in the West fail to realize that within every cultural community, there are some unique minds and souls that think differently, and they deserve an equal opportunity to be heard and to express their views. In order to try and correct this egregious wrong, she published a book called "Liberation – Secrets of the Soul,” it is a collection of short stories, revealing existential moments in the lives of ordinary women, from a variety of cultural backgrounds, as they journey to self-fulfillment.

Ellaf came to America as a refugee from Iraq when she was just a baby. When she was 14 years old, she was sent back to Iraq to get married. After years of sexual, mental, and physical abuse, she found the courage to escape. Join me as we listen to Ellaf tell her story of not only surviving a child marriage but of thriving as a graduate student, an entrepreneur and the proud mother of three children who she saved from the generational trauma that repeated itself unhindered until it was met with Ellaf.

Jaleh is the author of 'Public Secrets of Islam'. She was born in Iran under this current Islamic regime. She has always been a fierce supporter of women and against the brutality of political Islam. Her public criticisms have meant that she can no longer return to her homeland. In 2015 she survived an attack by an ISIS supporter at a free speech event that she had organized. Jaleh will tell us all about growing up in Iran, the terrorist attack that she survived, we will talk about her book and so much more. And, of course, she will also share with us her thoughts on the recent protests in Iran.

In some ways Anya and I are total opposites and in other ways, we lived parallel lives. While I was tyrannized by a far right ideology, her experience was that of tyranny from the far left. Anya is from the Soviet Union. As everybody else there, she was heavily brainwashed into the communist ideology. While she didn't have to wear a hijab, there was plenty she was forced to do, think, and say - whether she liked it or not. She is of Jewish descent and, due to systemic antisemitism, her options in life were limited. She had to wonder, which university is accepting Jews? Which jobs are open to Jews? etc. It took her years of reading books that were prohibited, having discussions with trusted friends and thinking, thinking, thinking to clean-up her mind and open it up to free critical thinking.