Libya’s War-Tested Women Hope to Keep New Power

Mohammed Salem/Reuters: TO ARMS - A rebel officer in Benghazi, Libya, taught women how to use various weapons during a training session in June.

By ANNE BARNARD

TRIPOLI, Libya — Aisha Gdour, a school psychologist, smuggled bullets in her brown leather handbag. Fatima Bredan, a hairdresser, tended wounded rebels. Hweida Shibadi, a family lawyer, helped NATO find airstrike targets. And Amal Bashir, an art teacher, used a secret code to collect orders for munitions: Small-caliber rounds were called “pins,” larger rounds were “nails.” A “bottle of milk” meant a Kalashnikov.

At War Blog: A Woman on Libya's Front Lines (September 12, 2011)

Sarah Elliott for The New York Times: Hweida Shibadi, left, and Nabila Abdelrahman Abu Ras gave aid to Libya's rebel forces and now seek a greater role in society.

In the Libyan rebels’ unlikely victory over Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, women did far more than send sons and husbands to the front. They hid fighters and cooked them meals. They sewed flags, collected money, contacted journalists. They ran guns and, in a few cases, used them. The six-month uprising against Colonel Qaddafi has propelled women in this traditional society into roles they never imagined. And now, though they already face obstacles to preserving their influence, many women never want to go back.

“Maybe I can be the new president or the mayor,” Ms. Gdour, 44, said Monday afternoon as she savored victory with other members of her rebel cell. They are three women who under the old government ran an underground charity that they transformed into a pipeline for rebel arms.

But in the emerging new Libya, women are so far almost invisible in the leadership. Libya’s 45-member Transitional National Council includes just one woman. The council’s headquarters does not have a women’s bathroom.

In neighboring Egypt, women have had trouble preserving gains from their own revolution. And in his exceedingly eccentric way, Colonel Qaddafi may have had a more expansive view of appropriate female behavior than some conservative Libyan families.

Still, much as Rosie the Riveter irreversibly changed the lives of American women after World War II, Libyan women say their war effort established facts on the ground that cannot be easily undone. Women from many walks of life are knitting small rebel support cells into larger networks, brainstorming what they can do next to help build a post-Qaddafi Libya.

Men are also responding, with some who once objected to fiancées and sisters working late or attending protests now beginning to support such activities. Fear of sexual coercion by Qaddafi cronies, once a pervasive threat to prominent women, has evaporated. Perhaps most important, women here participated in such large numbers they helped establish the legitimacy of the revolution, demonstrating that support for the uprising has penetrated deep into Libyan society.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Libya’s Battle-Tested Women Hope Gains Last - NYTimes.com