Women Key to Defeating Extremism

Over the past decade, Western media have repeatedly portrayed images of Muslim women as victims. We have read about the Taliban publicly beating young

women who laugh in the street; we have read about the targeted killings of professional Iraqi women – doctors, journalists, lawyers – who represent an opposing view to an extremist agenda. Americans have so often seen Muslim women as silent victims that they probably conjure picturesque images of shapeless and silent figures in bright blue burqas as synonymous with “Muslim women.”