Love what we do?
Become a member for unlimited access to EIP digital and print issues, attend Slow Factory’s Open Edu, and support us in continuing to create and publish.
Join us today.
You’re logged in, but don’t have an active membership.
Join Us
All memberships give full digital access, online and in-person events, and support climate justice, human rights, and freedom of expression.
Annual memberships available too!
$20
Member —
All digital access (suggested amount)
$40
Benefactor —
Receive a monthly(ish) printed journal
$100
Movement Builder —
Become an ambassador
Question? Ask us anything!
A Woman is Political
Arab Women are Speaking.
Why is mainstream media ignoring us?
When my book A Woman Is a School was released, it sold 3,000 copies in the first three months—a remarkable feat for an independently published work. Yet, despite its success and the critical conversations it sparked about womanhood, diaspora, and resistance, mainstream media outlets remained largely silent. Not silent, as in the story wasn’t a good fit — silent, as in, writers were excitedly pitching the book to their editors, only for us to experience the same bottleneck every time: these stories would go through a rigorous review, before ultimately being rejected by editors whose hands seemed to be tied.
This is not an anomaly. It is a pattern.

Arab women in the United States, whether authors, activists, or artists, have long been excluded from the national conversation, particularly when our narratives challenge dominant Western frameworks. Our voices are either ignored or tokenized, erased or exoticized. Rarely are we granted the full complexity, nuance, and visibility afforded to other women of color in the literary and media landscape.
The reality is that Arab women’s stories—our authentic, unfiltered stories—are often perceived as too inconvenient, too political, or too radical for mainstream platforms. When we write about our histories, our struggles, and our liberation, we are met with polite dismissals or outright rejection. We are seen as a risk, with our perspectives too disruptive to neatly fit into pre-approved narratives of diversity and representation. This isn’t new necessarily; we had seen a guilt-driven burst of inclusion during the 2020 movement behind Black Lives Matter. The ongoing erasure of Black, Indigenous and Minority Ethnic women, including Arab women, was just the norm up until that point.
Take the case of my book. A Woman Is a School is an exploration of womanhood through an Arab lens, weaving together personal and collective memory, history, and futurism. It is a book about resilience, about love, about the ways in which women shape the world around them. But it is also a book that refuses to flatten its identity to fit a Western framework. It does not ask for permission to exist. It simply exists. It doesn’t want to be labeled as a victim. It refuses the identity of a subjugated woman needing the Western gaze to be freed, it is liberated from and in fact liberating the West by just existing in its totality. Our identities as Arabs break the Western mindset of Black & White and the over-simplification and flattening of foreign identities into a “good or bad” bucket. Arabs are not a monolith; we are our own culture, but a highly diverse, multi- faith and multicultural group of people who are, imposing by their very existence, an expansion into Western popular consciousness. Ultimately, they’re forcing an expansion of concepts that go beyond the West as the center of the world. By challenging colonial paradigms and demanding justice, they are showing the world as a powerful biodiverse universe.
And that, perhaps, is the problem.
Mainstream media has long dictated which stories about Arab women are acceptable for public consumption, often limiting their appearance as a stereotype of their own culture to justify a white savior’s lens as the eternal occupier of our Lands. We are only allowed visibility when we are victims—when our pain can be used to justify interventionist policies or to reinforce Western narratives of saviorism. We are granted space when we denounce our own cultures, when we serve as proof of the “backwardness” of the places we come from.
But when we speak on our own terms—when we center our agency, our joy, our wisdom, or our defiance—the doors close.
This is not just about me or my book. It is about the larger forces that determine whose voices matter. The media, as a gatekeeper, plays a significant role in shaping public discourse, and its refusal to engage with Arab women’s narratives, contributes to a cycle of erasure.
If we are only visible when we conform to predetermined roles—either as oppressed or as exceptional tokens—then we are never truly seen. And if the publishing and media industries continue to sideline us, then they are complicit in maintaining the structures that silence us.
The irony is that despite this exclusion, Arab women continue to create, to write, to resist. We are speaking. And we have always been speaking.
The question is: when will the media start listening?
In Conversation:
Illustration by:
Keep reading:
Global Echoes of Resistance:
Artists Harnessing Art, Culture, and Ancestry
Danny Aros
{
"article":
{
"title" : "A Woman is Political",
"author" : "Céline Semaan",
"category" : "essays",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/a-woman-is-political",
"date" : "2025-03-21 17:36:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/a-woman-is-a-school.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Arab Women are Speaking.",
"content" : "Arab Women are Speaking.Why is mainstream media ignoring us?When my book A Woman Is a School was released, it sold 3,000 copies in the first three months—a remarkable feat for an independently published work. Yet, despite its success and the critical conversations it sparked about womanhood, diaspora, and resistance, mainstream media outlets remained largely silent. Not silent, as in the story wasn’t a good fit — silent, as in, writers were excitedly pitching the book to their editors, only for us to experience the same bottleneck every time: these stories would go through a rigorous review, before ultimately being rejected by editors whose hands seemed to be tied.This is not an anomaly. It is a pattern.Arab women in the United States, whether authors, activists, or artists, have long been excluded from the national conversation, particularly when our narratives challenge dominant Western frameworks. Our voices are either ignored or tokenized, erased or exoticized. Rarely are we granted the full complexity, nuance, and visibility afforded to other women of color in the literary and media landscape.The reality is that Arab women’s stories—our authentic, unfiltered stories—are often perceived as too inconvenient, too political, or too radical for mainstream platforms. When we write about our histories, our struggles, and our liberation, we are met with polite dismissals or outright rejection. We are seen as a risk, with our perspectives too disruptive to neatly fit into pre-approved narratives of diversity and representation. This isn’t new necessarily; we had seen a guilt-driven burst of inclusion during the 2020 movement behind Black Lives Matter. The ongoing erasure of Black, Indigenous and Minority Ethnic women, including Arab women, was just the norm up until that point.Take the case of my book. A Woman Is a School is an exploration of womanhood through an Arab lens, weaving together personal and collective memory, history, and futurism. It is a book about resilience, about love, about the ways in which women shape the world around them. But it is also a book that refuses to flatten its identity to fit a Western framework. It does not ask for permission to exist. It simply exists. It doesn’t want to be labeled as a victim. It refuses the identity of a subjugated woman needing the Western gaze to be freed, it is liberated from and in fact liberating the West by just existing in its totality. Our identities as Arabs break the Western mindset of Black & White and the over-simplification and flattening of foreign identities into a “good or bad” bucket. Arabs are not a monolith; we are our own culture, but a highly diverse, multi- faith and multicultural group of people who are, imposing by their very existence, an expansion into Western popular consciousness. Ultimately, they’re forcing an expansion of concepts that go beyond the West as the center of the world. By challenging colonial paradigms and demanding justice, they are showing the world as a powerful biodiverse universe.And that, perhaps, is the problem.Mainstream media has long dictated which stories about Arab women are acceptable for public consumption, often limiting their appearance as a stereotype of their own culture to justify a white savior’s lens as the eternal occupier of our Lands. We are only allowed visibility when we are victims—when our pain can be used to justify interventionist policies or to reinforce Western narratives of saviorism. We are granted space when we denounce our own cultures, when we serve as proof of the “backwardness” of the places we come from.But when we speak on our own terms—when we center our agency, our joy, our wisdom, or our defiance—the doors close.This is not just about me or my book. It is about the larger forces that determine whose voices matter. The media, as a gatekeeper, plays a significant role in shaping public discourse, and its refusal to engage with Arab women’s narratives, contributes to a cycle of erasure.If we are only visible when we conform to predetermined roles—either as oppressed or as exceptional tokens—then we are never truly seen. And if the publishing and media industries continue to sideline us, then they are complicit in maintaining the structures that silence us.The irony is that despite this exclusion, Arab women continue to create, to write, to resist. We are speaking. And we have always been speaking.The question is: when will the media start listening?"
}
,
"relatedposts": [
{
"title" : "Neptune Frost",
"author" : "Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman",
"category" : "screenings",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/eip-screening-neptune-frost",
"date" : "2025-07-12 16:00:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/netune-frost-movie-poster.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Join us on Saturday, July 12 for a special screening, followed by an exclusive Q&A with the directors of Neptune Frost. Part of our member screening series, tune in live or anytime in the next 24 hours, from anywhere in the world!",
"content" : "Join us on Saturday, July 12 for a special screening, followed by an exclusive Q&A with the directors of Neptune Frost. Part of our member screening series, tune in live or anytime in the next 24 hours, from anywhere in the world!Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that’s a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs that Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing. Co-directed with the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. From their camp in an otherworldly e-waste dump, they attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region’s natural resources – and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry. Set between states of being – past and present, dream and waking life, colonized and free, male and female, memory and prescience – Neptune Frost is an invigorating and empowering direct download to the cerebral cortex and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends."
}
,
{
"title" : "Socialist Girl Summer: How Capitalism Spent Billions to Demonize Socialism — And Why That Spell Is Breaking",
"author" : "Céline Semaan",
"category" : "essays",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/socialist-girl-summer-demonize-socialism-why-spell-breaking",
"date" : "2025-07-03 22:00:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_SocialistGirlSummer.jpg",
"excerpt" : "As the founder of Slow Factory, I design everything you see—every typeface, every framework, every campaign. I don’t outsource the vision. I shape it. And I started Slow with one goal in mind: to rebrand socialism, justice, and environmentalism—not as niche causes, but as cultural movements essential to our survival. Design isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s about power. And I use design as a tool to imagine, demand, and build better worlds.For nearly a century, the United States has spent billions of dollars, media bandwidth, and educational muscle to ensure one thing: that the word socialism would strike fear in the public imagination. That’s not because socialism failed. It’s because socialism threatens power—especially the kind of power that hoards land, labor, and life for profit.But something is shifting. The re-election of Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani in New York—an openly socialist organizer who unapologetically defends tenants, workers, and Palestinians—marks a rupture in that narrative. A new generation no longer flinches at the word. They embrace it. They are building it. They are winning.But before we can move forward, we must understand what we are up against.",
"content" : "As the founder of Slow Factory, I design everything you see—every typeface, every framework, every campaign. I don’t outsource the vision. I shape it. And I started Slow with one goal in mind: to rebrand socialism, justice, and environmentalism—not as niche causes, but as cultural movements essential to our survival. Design isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s about power. And I use design as a tool to imagine, demand, and build better worlds.For nearly a century, the United States has spent billions of dollars, media bandwidth, and educational muscle to ensure one thing: that the word socialism would strike fear in the public imagination. That’s not because socialism failed. It’s because socialism threatens power—especially the kind of power that hoards land, labor, and life for profit.But something is shifting. The re-election of Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani in New York—an openly socialist organizer who unapologetically defends tenants, workers, and Palestinians—marks a rupture in that narrative. A new generation no longer flinches at the word. They embrace it. They are building it. They are winning.But before we can move forward, we must understand what we are up against.A Propaganda Empire Built on FearFrom Cold War cinema to first-grade civics books, socialism was rendered as the enemy. Not because it endangered democracy, but because it questioned private property, militarism, and capitalism’s sacred cow: unlimited profit.The U.S. government, backed by its capitalist elite, responded with a sweeping cultural war. The Red Scare and McCarthyism turned union leaders, civil rights activists, and artists into traitors. The FBI surveilled and imprisoned people for organizing against poverty and racial capitalism. Hollywood blacklists sanitized storytelling and sold capitalist mythology as aspirational truth. CIA coups, from Chile to Iran to the Congo, dismantled democratically elected socialist governments because they dared to nationalize oil, land, and education. This wasn’t a fear of failure. It was a fear of redistribution.Why the Spell Is BreakingCapitalism made big promises. But it delivered gig work, burnout, debt, climate collapse, and endless war. A growing number of people—especially Gen Z and Millennials—aren’t buying the myth anymore.According to Pew Research (2023), 70% of younger Americans support some form of socialism.Mutual aid groups, public power campaigns, and tenant unions are taking root in cities across the U.S.And politicians like Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Summer Lee, and others are bringing these values to governance—publicly, unapologetically.This isn’t a rebrand. This is a return. A remembering.Designing LiberationDesign has always been political. It’s a tool used by empires—and also a tool of resistance. Every successful propaganda campaign used design to criminalize solidarity and glorify capitalism.Mid-century posters showed socialism as monstrous: Stalin as an octopus devouring the planet. Red flags engulfing American homes in flames. Inspectors peering through windows. These visuals weren’t neutral. They were weapons.But today, we’re flipping the frame.As a designer, I use visual culture to demystify and disrupt these fear-based narratives. We design not just what we see—but how we see. And when we shift that perspective, we make new futures possible.My work at Slow Factory has always been about this: telling stories rooted in care, equity, and ecological justice. Whether through open education, cultural programming, or climate justice campaigns, I’m reprogramming what power looks like—and who it belongs to.Zohran Mamdani and the Future of StorytellingMamdani’s victory isn’t just electoral. It’s cultural. He won while calling for an end to genocide in Gaza, organizing with workers instead of corporations, and speaking openly about the harms of capitalism and imperialism.He won while the establishment poured millions into defeating him.His win is proof: the old script is wearing thin.Reclaiming the Word, Reclaiming the WorldSocialism has always been about care—public housing, free healthcare, universal education, the right to rest and exist without fear. These are not fringe demands. These are the bare minimum for a livable planet.The villain was never socialism. The villain was the empire that told us we didn’t deserve care unless we could afford it.We are entering the Possible Futures era. And it’s being led by people who no longer fear justice—but are terrified of its absence.Designing that future means unlearning propaganda and replacing it with stories of survival, resistance, and imagination. We must reclaim the visual language of dignity—transforming symbols of domination into frameworks for liberation.We don’t just need to rebrand socialism.We need to remember it.And redesign everything."
}
,
{
"title" : "Who’s Profiting from Genocide? What Francesca Albanese’s Report Reveals—and Why It Matters for the Climate",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "essays",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/profiting-from-genocide-what-francesca-albanese-report",
"date" : "2025-07-02 18:33:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_Francesca_Report.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Let’s be clear: genocide is never just a military operation. It’s an economy.",
"content" : "Let’s be clear: genocide is never just a military operation. It’s an economy.This week, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese released a groundbreaking report—“From the Economy of Occupation to the Economy of Genocide” naming dozens of global corporations complicit in and benefitting from Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. The report makes what many of us have long known impossible to ignore: multinational corporations are not just “doing business” with Israel—they are profiting from displacement, resource theft, and mass death.And it’s not just harming people. It’s killing the planet.Albanese’s report lays out how corporations across defense, tech, finance, construction, and agriculture are directly enabling Israel’s assault on Gaza. This is not indirect. This is not abstract. These companies are not passive observers—they are profiteers. Weapon Manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Elbit Systems, Boeing, BAE Systems, and General Dynamics are supplying the bombs raining down on hospitals and refugee camps. Tech Giants like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, and Palantir provide the cloud computing, AI surveillance, and targeting software that power Israel’s military intelligence. Construction Firms like Caterpillar, HD Hyundai, and Volvo provide bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes—often paid for with public funds or foreign aid. Hospitality Platforms like Booking.com and Airbnb list vacation rentals on stolen Palestinian land, laundering settler colonialism into leisure. Financial Institutions including BlackRock, Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Deutsche Bank fund Israeli military bonds and invest in all the above sectors. This is what an economy of genocide looks like: global, profitable, and deeply entrenched in the status quo.Genocide and Ecocide Are Two Sides of the Same CoinThe same companies enabling genocide are actively destroying ecosystems. This isn’t a coincidence—it’s a pattern.Caterpillar, already infamous for displacing Palestinian families, is a major contributor to fossil fuel extraction and mining projects that poison Indigenous lands in the Global South.Palantir, which boasts about using AI to “optimize” military surveillance, is also deployed by ICE in the United States to track, detain, and deport climate refugees and migrants.Netafim, an Israeli irrigation company profiting off stolen Palestinian water, is celebrated as “sustainable innovation” in the ag-tech world—masking eco-apartheid as green tech.In short: genocide and ecocide share a supply chain. And we need to cut the cord.Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer, supplies drones and surveillance tech to police at the U.S.-Mexico border—and to ICE.HP and Google provide AI and cloud infrastructure for the Israeli military while also marketing themselves as “green tech” leaders.Chevron and ExxonMobil continue to fund and extract from the Eastern Mediterranean, leveraging Israel’s military occupation to secure infrastructure.This is greenwashing meets genocide—a deadly symbiosis between environmental harm and militarized violence.What This Means for UsThis moment calls for more than statements. It calls for a total redefinition of what sustainability means—because there is nothing sustainable about silence in the face of genocide.If you are a brand, an artist, a designer, a policymaker, a curator, or a student: you are being called in. Your work, your budget, your institution may be entangled—knowingly or not—with the companies Albanese has exposed. Now is the time to do the work.What We Must Do—Now1. Follow the MoneyStudy the companies listed in Albanese’s report. If you work with—or fund—any of them, ask questions. Divest. Cut ties.2. Demand Institutional AccountabilityMuseums, universities, nonprofits, and sustainability conferences are often quietly sponsored by companies profiting from Israeli apartheid. Push for transparency. Refuse complicity. Call it what it is.3. Connect the StrugglesThe fight for Palestinian liberation is not separate from climate justice. This is all one system: extraction, occupation, militarization, profit. As we say often: everything is political—because everything is connected.4. Build and Invest in AlternativesMutual aid, abolitionist design, food sovereignty, fossil-free infrastructure, and Indigenous stewardship—these are not just buzzwords. They are the way forward. Center Global South leadership. Fund frontline communities.5. Say PalestineRefuse the pressure to sanitize. Refuse the pressure to stay neutral. In the face of genocide, neutrality is complicity. If your liberation practice does not include Palestine, it is incomplete.A Propaganda Crisis, TooThese companies aren’t just selling tools of war—they’re shaping narratives. They sponsor art exhibitions, climate conferences, design summits. They greenwash occupation and brand apartheid as “security innovation.”The most dangerous lie today is that “sustainability” can coexist with genocide. It can’t.No climate justice without Palestinian liberation. No sustainable future while apartheid is profitable.So What Can We Do?DivestCampaign for your workplace, university, or city to divest from the companies named in the report. Check your retirement funds. Audit your donors. Pull the receipts.ExposeIf your favorite brand or cultural institution is collaborating with Amazon, Palantir, or Caterpillar—say something. Publicly. Email them. Call it what it is: complicity.Cut the Narrative LoopRefuse to use language that normalizes occupation: “conflict,” “both sides,” “retaliation.” This is genocide.Build AlternativesSupport community-owned energy, Palestinian agricultural cooperatives, and local solidarity economies. Join land back and degrowth movements—they are connected.Organize for PolicyPush for legislation that bans military trade with apartheid regimes and prohibits companies from profiting off human rights abuses.Tell the Truth, ConsistentlyUse your platform to amplify the names, the facts, the systems. Share this report. Write your own version. Make the invisible visible.The Link Between Genocide and Climate HarmWe can’t talk about genocide without talking about resource theft, land colonization, and environmental destruction. The same weapons being used to bomb hospitals and schools in Gaza are being manufactured by companies who also profit from climate collapse—polluting ecosystems, propping up fossil fuel economies, and creating the conditions for displacement that militarized borders are then built to contain.We must hold the line. Genocide is not inevitable—it is designed. And anything that is designed can be dismantled. If we want to build a just, livable future, we must start by divesting from the machinery of death—and investing in life.Let this be the beginning."
}
]
}