What comes next for Syria’s women? A revolution that doesn’t free them is no revolution at all | Mona Eltahawy

The women celebrating the destruction of jails and dungeons will now be wondering why their own oppression cannot also be dismantled

Thirteen years after they joined the revolutionary wave sweeping across the Middle East and north Africa, Syrians can say they have consigned the name of Bashar al-Assad to the history books alongside Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen. But as the past 13 years have shown in all those countries, liberation requires more than removing one man from the presidential palace. We women, especially, know that.

Today I am thinking of Razan Zaitouneh, a Syrian revolutionary who along with three of her comrades, collectively known as the Douma Four, disappeared in rebel-held territory on 9 December 2013 – 11 years less a day before Assad was toppled. Zaitouneh’s revolution targeted everyone: the Assad regime, rebel groups and Islamist militants alike.

Mona Eltahawy is the author of the Feminist Giant newsletter. She wrote several articles from Syria for the Guardian in 1999-2000, including a report on the funeral of Hafez al-Assad

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