I've been asking devout Muslim American women how they feel about the status of women in Islam. Over and over, they give me the romantic apologist point of view: "Islam is a feminist paradise! I wouldn't change a thing."

But then again, many others offer me -- a Jewish...

Last month, a woman named Sara Hurwitz was honored in a ceremony at a prestigious modern Orthodox synagogue in the Bronx, the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. There was a lot to celebrate: Hurwitz had completed eight years of intensive learning -- the same curriculum completed by male Orthodox rabbinical...

When I saw last week that The New York Times had published an op-ed by Muammar el-Qaddafi, leader of Libya, it got me thinking. I've been submitting opinion pieces to the Times for years without success. I've sent in punchy, timely essays on sexual harassment, cosmetic surgery, women and...

Most of us have a presidential fantasy. Some of us long to transform the health care system. Some imagine the possibilities in humanitarian aid. Others daydream about the presidential lifestyle -- the private chef, the bowling alley in the White House basement, Air Force One.

My fantasy centers on the...

When Orthodox Jewish families light Hanukkah candles this evening, will the women light too? More than how many jelly doughnuts and chocolate coins can my kids eat before they feel sick (answer: more than you can imagine), I wonder how many stringently observant Jewish women will take advantage of the...

Two weeks ago at Yeshiva University, English professor Joy Ladin, Ph.D., returned to work after a two-year leave. Ladin is transgender -- she was formerly Jay Ladin -- making Y.U. the first religiously conservative university in the United States with a transgender faculty member, according to Mara Keisling, executive director...

In Sex and the City, Carrie and her friends pound the Manhattan pavement in stilettos. For me, the mystery isn't if they live happily ever after but whether or not they have bunions and hammertoes.

Many real-life Manhattan women walk around the city in rubber flip-flops,...

My children, ages six and eight, don't know about the birds and the bees. But now they do know about abortion.

On our wholesome family trip to historic Philadelphia over Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I took the kids to visit the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, where...

In an effort to improve Muslim-Jewish relations in New York City, the city's most prominent mosque and the flagship seminary of the Jewish Conservative movement have reached out to one another. Last month, Imam Shamsi Ali of the Islamic Cultural Center, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side, gave a sermon...

One year ago yesterday, the head of the most influential seminary of the Conservative Jewish movement announced that openly gay and lesbian students could become rabbis and cantors. The Reconstructionist movement decided 24 years ago to permit gay rabbis, and the Reform movement followed 18 years ago. Finally, after decades...

In Buffalo, New York, a mother of three and a user of the contraceptive pill, Anne S., was suffering from attacks of dizziness and double vision. She also felt stiffness in her neck. Alarmed, she called her gynecologist and asked, "Is the Pill safe? Should I be taking it?"

There's an alternative halftime show at Jets home games, reports The New York Times. Fans congregate at Giants Stadium's pedestrian ramps at Gate D. There they proceed to chant and demand that any woman walking by expose her breasts. When a woman decides she'd prefer to remain with her...

Quick: What is "modest fashion" for a girl or woman? Is it crewneck tops and loose, shapeless pants? Buttoned-up cardigans and ankle-grazing skirts? Are sandals ever "modest"? What about a few inches of bare legs peeking from beneath a calf-length hem?

After 279 pages of Wendy Shalit's Girls Gone Mild:...

How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb? One, and that's not funny!

Most American women, especially young women, agree with the feminist goal of women's equality yet eschew the label. Speaking as a feminist myself, I can't say I blame them. Let's face it: In...

If I were sitting in the pews listening to Christopher Hitchens delivering a sermon on his new book, a denunciation of religion, I would roll my eyes, perhaps doze off, maybe even walk out. This is what believers in houses of worship do when confronted with overblown, out-of-touch, and insulting...