The Women’s Revolution

Today, I was searching the library database for books on Yemen. I was hardly surprised when I found the top subjects including “child marriage” “abused wives” and “wife abuse.” Although Yemen has come a long way in the last twenty years, the rural villages, especially, have remained virtually unchanged for centuries in terms of culture and gender expections. That being said, political scientists, anthropologists, and sociologists alike cannot deny that dramatic changes for women in Yemen’s major cities, particularly the capital, Sana’a.

In terms of the revolution, the focus once again has turned towards the women of Sanaa as yesterday was the first time a woman was killed in a demonstration against the government. Early Sunday, in the city of Taiz, a government sniper killed 20 year old Aziza Othman Kaleb with a single shot to the head. Thousands of women demonstrated today in front of Yemen’s foreign ministry in the capital, Sanaa demanding United Nations intervention in the ongoing unrest.

The key departure from the norm is that its most prominent activist is a mother of three, an inspiring figure in a country not known for progressive attitudes towards women; but for Tawakkol Karman, a 32 year old mother of three, journalist, activist, and now Nobel peace prize winner, it is political change for all that matters at the risk of losing her own life.
For the first time, and oddly enough, in a state named one of “The Worst Places in the World to be a Woman” by Newsweek, a woman can be the face for the opposition against a dictator with a legacy longer than Mubarak’s. There is much more at stake regarding the success of the opposition, as Saleh and other authorities criticized the mixing of men and women in the protests. This could give way to more rigid policies against the women if the opposition is unsuccessful as a punishment of sorts.

"It seems that President Saleh failed in all his efforts to employ tribes and security to strike at those seeking his exit, and so he resorted to using religion, especially after he saw that thousands of women were taking part in protests," said Samia al-Aghbari, a leader in the protest movement.



Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/17/world/meast/yemen-unrest/index.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2011/03/201131683916701492.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/10/2011102133713539233.html