Women and the Arab Spring

In December 2010, the world turned its attention to Tunisia after a young street vendor set himself on fire to protest the government’s unjust treatment of the Tunisian people. His actions and his subsequent death sparked widespread protests, and within weeks that government fell. Since then, we have seen dictators toppled in Egypt and Libya and antigovernment protests erupt from Syria to Yemen. And in each of these countries, we have seen women fighting for change, whether it was the young female students marching in Tahrir Square or the women in Yemen who took to the streets to burn their veils in a sign of defiance.