Hi Nick,

As an Arab myself, I am quite surprised by your statement that "all" Arabs equate their leaders to angry feminists. This is the first time I hear about this, and I think it is a quite odd "equation". I wonder why would people equate dictators to feminists, as the term "dictator" should be sufficient to portray those leaders.

If you are using this example to demonstrate how Arabs oppose the progressive movements of the West, then I also like to point out that I am an Arab and I am progressive. I also support the women's rights movement and feminism. In face, there is a feminist movement among Arabs, and some Muslim Arabs have created their own version known as Islamic Feminism. I really struggle to understand why social change has to be only a Western concept. It doesn't have to be.

As an Arab, I think there are just as many toxic structures waiting to fall down in the Middle East as there are in the Western world. Maybe instead of focusing on the two polarities (leftist, rightist) we should focus on understanding the hardships in both worlds from a deeper perspective. I agree that the writer of this article may not have portrayed the Arab Spring accurately, but she brought up a valid point of how both worlds (Western and Arab) struggle the same. And maybe we should focus on that.