In a recent article on CNN, a female cartoonist--Hana Hajjar--proves that women are rising in Saudi Arabia, and Middle-East in general, as persons and Hana is showing that the bar of inequality is being erased with every stroke of her pencil.
"I think men have put women in an unfavorable position in this part of the world. They've put women in an oppressive situation," said Hana Hajjar.
She feels it's her duty to speak on behalf of women being oppressed everywhere in the Middle-East.
The youngest of nine children, Hana grew up in a family that supported her ambitions to become a cartoonist. And though outspoken women in conservative Saudi Arabia, Hajjar hasn't faced any repercussions.
I think that this article demonstrates the strides the Middle-East is taking in modernizing their countries, bringing them, slowly but surely, into a democratic society. With help from the Western countries, the Middle-East can turn the crawl to democracy into a run and the sooner, the better.
Today, more and more fathers are allowing their daughters more freedom, freedom to explore the world around them, apply for jobs that are meant for 'men', and even sometimes allowing them to leave the country without a male member of their family as an escort. These leniencies and open-mindedness are exactly what conservative Middle-Eastern countries need to adopt in order to establish themselves in the 21st century.
On the precipice towards democracy, I believe that the key lies with the oppressed women of the extremely conservative Middle-Eastern countries. If they do not rise up (mirroring the suffragists of the early 20th century), if they don't speak up and defend themselves, then the country will be choked by the iron-grip of men's oppressive rule over women which mirrors that of a dictatorship.
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