After the Revolution: The Struggle for Women’s Rights in Yemen

Scattered applause broke out as a young woman in a black robe and a floral headscarf stepped onto a crate outside the gates of Sana’a University in Yemen’s capital and called for the attention of the hundred or so students around her. It was mid-February 2011, and Tawakkol Karman, who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize later that year, was leading one of the first demonstrations against Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Earlier that night, she was at home with her husband when news broke that Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, one of the longest-serving autocrats in the Arab world, had stepped down after mass protests.