CAIRO May 18, 2011 (Her Blueprint) – Though demonstrating, taking risks, mobilizing, suffering and standing side by side with men in the uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, Arab women are also challenging the Western media to acknowledge their voice.
From Tunisia, to Egypt, to Yemen and Morocco, women have been at the forefront of the Arab Spring revolutions.
Yemeni women, who represent a third of the thousands of anti-government protestors demanding an end to Ali Abdullah Saleh’s thirty-year rule, are shattering traditions that go back centuries.
“I myself came from a conservative family but my grandmother used to have more freedom in the way that she dressed, talked and dealt with men than I have now,” said Samia al-Haddad, Program and Human Rights Officer for the Yemeni Organization for Development and Rehabilitation in an interview with Her Blueprint.
According to al-Haddad, women’s rights became stifled after the 80’s.
“If you see the footage and the video coming from Yemen and you will see all women veiled in black and this was not the image of women in the 80’s before the expansion of Salafists and Wahabi movements came from Saudi Arabia.”
Hibaaq Osman from Somalia is the CEO and Founder of Karama. She says that the Western media was shocked to see women out on the streets, raising their voices, protesting for democracy and walking side by side with men for a unified cause – political reform and equal rights.
“You have to understand the psychology of the Western media. They want to see a weak, meek and covered woman,” Osman told Her Blueprint.
According to Osman, it’s about time that the West take a good look at themselves before pointing the finger.
