By Asmaa Fathy

Before the 2011 revolutions, I have never seen a good portrayal of Muslim women in media.

The women covered by the media usually played into the stereotypes of Muslim women as weak, silent, and victimized, and the only discussion about Muslim women that ever got any airtime was about their clothing.

Many so-called experts, media gurus, and politicians obsessed over head-scarves (hijabs), face veils (niqabs), and cloaks (burkhas), clearly believing that Muslim women were somehow defined by their clothing choices.

But When the media images of women from Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen began rolling in, I was thrilled.

Here were women who were neither submissive nor silent, and their clothing appeared to pose no barriers to their participation in the demonstrations.

There were pictures of young girls with hijabs tucked around animated faces, arms raised high and fingers split in the universal signs for victory and peace.

There were images of women in niqab bowing down in prayer shoulder-to-shoulder with men, in front of tanks and barricades and screaming revolutionary slogans in Arabic and English. In fact, some of the key leaders in the protests were women wearing hijabs.

In Yemen, Tawakul Abdel-Salam Karman, a fiery female activist managed to lead the protests while wearing a hijab and black burkha. many egyptains women whom is credited with a significant role in igniting and then leading the revolution in Egypt, wore a hijab