Yemen's Tawakul Karman, the chairwoman of Women Journalists Without chains who sparked the movement for democracy that is sweeping the Region of the Middle East.
Tawakul Karman has only generated five entries on Google search and pictures of her are scarce.
And, thanks to CTV News, everyone I know has heard of Iman al-Obeidi, a Libyan woman who claims she was raped by Gaddafi
soldiers.
Up until these Google entries and video news reports, web pages about Arab women "sheikhing" the region of the Middle East focused on the fab four wives of the ruling dictators: Syria's Asma al-Assad, Jordan's Rania al-Yassin, Dubai's Haya Bint al-Hussein, Qatar's Mozah bint Nasser.
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Asma Al-Assad |
Rania al-Yassin |
Haya Bint al-Hussein |
Mozah bint Nasser |
All four of these women have displayed consummate commonsense and stylesense notwithstanding their choice of husbands and have grown fanbases amongst women of their world with competing Facebook pages.
Recently, Asma al-Assad's glowing write up in Vogue was met by outrage in all the usual places reports Joshua Landis.
Max Fisher and Jeffrey Goldberg, big supporters of Israel, criticized Vogue for its Juliet Joan Buck authored, A Rose in the Desert, profile of Syria's first lady. They express horror at seeing a positive write up of Syria despite the 40-year totalitarian depravities of Syria's terror-sponsoring Assads.
They were mute when Israeli opposition leader, Tzipi Livini was named to the list of the 150 women who shake the world. This, according to a story published in Newsweek and The Daily Beast which coincided with World Women's Day celebrations and an eponymous conference held that week in New York.
Does the power to shake the world reside in the women of the Region? Speculate with me on the state of mind of the wives of the Region's dictators. What could they be advising their husbands to do at this time in history?
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Daisy@Stylesense.com