---
description: As Libya and Egypt hold nationwide elections, LightBox presents the work of Sarah Elliott, whose photographs show those who had the most at stake after the revolutions: women.
title: After the Spring: Women of the Arab Revolution
image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4eb2a8770fc7836b/698688aacd804d0d43cca153/hervoicecounts_03.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9
---
* [World](/section/world/)
## World
Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/)
Close
* [LightBox](/tag/time-section-lightbox/)
## LightBox
Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/)
Close
# After the Spring: Women of the Arab Revolution
by
[Ishaan Tharoor](/author/ishaan-tharoor/)
## Ishaan Tharoor
Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/)
Close
Jul 9, 2012 8:00 AM CUT
Tripoli, Libya. September 2011\. Women of all ages gathered by the thousands in Tripoli's Martyrs' Square to celebrate the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.
Tripoli, Libya. September 2011\. Women of all ages gathered by the thousands in Tripoli's Martyrs' Square to celebrate the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.Sarah Elliott
by
[Ishaan Tharoor](/author/ishaan-tharoor/)
## Ishaan Tharoor
Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/)
Close
Jul 9, 2012 8:00 AM CUT
A year after they both captured the global imagination, the revolutions in Egypt and Libya are now poised on a knife-edge. The sense of hope that followed the departures of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi — the former nudged out of power by the army top brass; the latter eventually killed by rebel militia after a bloody eight-month civil war — has withered. In Egypt, the shadow of the country’s domineering military looms large despite the victory in presidential elections of a candidate from the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood. (Many liberals, meanwhile, question the Islamists’ commitment to a free and open democracy.) In Libya, the violent overthrow of the four-decade old Gaddafi dictatorship has left behind a fledgling state that is riven by tribal militias, even as the nation held elections last weekend.
Witnessing the upheaval firsthand, photojournalist Sarah Elliott set about documenting those who have had most to gain — and to lose — from the transformations of the Arab Spring: women. The revolutions in both countries, which were aimed at toppling an encrusted, deep-seated authoritarianism, presented women “with opportunities they had never before imagined,” says Elliott. Women massed on the frontlines of protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square; in Libya, some were on the frontlines as well — with machine guns.
Yet when Elliott arrived in Libya last August, not long before the fall of the capital Tripoli, she entered a story that seemed — at least as it was being conveyed then to the outside world — bereft of women. While myriad images beamed out of North Africa depicted crowds of men chanting in the streets or strutting around abandoned tanks, “women were totally unseen, they were absent,” says Elliott. In Tripoli, she went to hospitals and prisons, civil society meetings and ransacked government buildings, interviewing women from all walks of life and political stripes. Her project includes both a pro-Gaddafi sniper, whom Elliott first encounters on a hospital bed and then at a makeshift prison, as well as a range of women affiliated with the rebellion—including one lady who would smuggle bullets in her handbag and another, a fighter on the front, who named her child after the popular “Doshka” machine gun.
Elliott’s photographs blend portraiture and reportage; the testimony of those she documents is important. “I wasn’t just snapping pics,” says Elliott. “I sat down with them for hours and kept in contact. I want to fully tell their story.” She hopes to expand the project from Libya and Egypt to cover the whole breadth of the Arab Spring — most immediately Tunisia, where last year’s seismic upheavals first began and where a fragile consensus exists between the Islamist and secularist forces that came to power in the revolution’s wake.
**(Related:** [**Egypt’s Muslim Sisterhood: What roles do Islamist women play?**](http://world.time.com/2012/06/15/egypts-muslim-sisterhood-what-roles-do-islamist-women-play/ "undefined")**)**
For women, much is at stake. The promise of sweeping political change has run up against the realities of conservative, deeply patriarchal societies. In both post-revolution Egypt and Libya, Islamist pressure led to the axing of minimum quotas for women in the countries’ new elected legislatures. Fears grow over a roll-back of the moderate gains made by women’s rights in the era of the dictatorships, which, while repressive, tended to be secular. In Egypt, incidences of sexual harassment and intimidation — which had a brief reprieve during the giddy days of unity at Tahrir Square — have worsened; many feel increasingly marginalized by the post-revolution status quo. “For women, there’s a sense that their revolution never really ended,” says Elliott. She hopes to follow them as their struggle continues.
_Sarah Elliott is a Nairobi-based photographer. See more of her work_ [_here_](http://sarahelliottphotography.com/ "undefined")_._
Tripoli, Libya. September 2011\. Women of all ages gathered by the thousands in Tripoli's Martyrs' Square to celebrate the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi. Sarah Elliott
Cairo. November 2011\. A sign hanging in Tahrir Square, "Women Are Present Too." Sarah Elliott
Tripoli, Libya. August 2011\. Salma Taghdi, 22, Aseel Tajuri, 22, and Maysam Shebani, 22, created a revolutionary newspaper to provide citizens of Tripoli with daily updates gathered from the radio. Taghdi and her father used a radio to listen in on the movements of Qaddafi’s troops since the start of the Libyan Revolution. Sarah Elliott
Tripoli, Libya. September 2011\. Women of all ages gathered by the thousands in Tripoli's Martyrs' Square to celebrate the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi. Sarah Elliott
Cairo. December 2011\. A woman watches from a bus as a demonstration takes place outside of a courthouse in Cairo. Sarah Elliott
Tripoli, Libya. March 2012\. Jumana Wali, 20, has been shooting for the past five years. Her mother, Amal Taher Arab, 51, and her older sister Areej Ibrahim Wali, 24, are the three best female rifle shooters in Libya. Sarah Elliott
Cairo. November 2011\. On November 28, Egypt held its first round of parliamentary elections. "This is my first time voting. There are so many women than ever before," said Norhan Korim, 22. Sarah Elliott
Tripoli, Libya. March 2012\. Sarah Esmael, 29, is an anchorwoman for an online political show called Conversations and Opinions. Sarah Elliott
Tripoli, Libya. April 2012\. A Girl Scout group gathered in Tripoli for a weekend Jamboree. The girl scouts had planned to travel outside of the capitol for a camping trip, but tribal clashes in Zwara worried girls' parents. Sarah Elliott
Tripoli, Libya. April 2012\. Noor Al Huda, 18, has been a Girl Scout in Libya for the past four years. Scouts in Libya was founded in 1954 and escaped Gaddafi's bans on independent organizations because Gaddafi himself was said to be a scout at a young age. Sarah Elliott
Tripoli, Libya. March 2012\. Women's groups and NGOs gathered to celebrate International Women's Day. "The Voice of Libyan Women" and "Phoenix Libya" groups were present, all dressed in white to signify peace. Sarah Elliott
Tripoli, Libya. April 2012 A Libyan woman prays in her bedroom. When Muslims pray they present themselves to God in the act, to be fully covered is a mark of respect. Sarah Elliott
Tripoli, Libya. April 2012\. Freeda Shlabi, 56, had a "red file" opened in her name in 1980 by Gaddafi's Internal Ministry. "They started threatening me, calling me and investigating me asking for names of my friends." Sarah Elliott
Tripoli, Libya. March 2012\. On March 8th, recognized as International Women's Day, women's groups and NGOs gathered in Tripoli to celebrate. Sarah Elliott
Tripoli, Libya. April 2012\. Dr Mariam Tayeb, 32, with her 3-month-old daughter, Doshka. Tayeb was a female rebel fighter who fought for the city of Bani Walid. She was seven months pregnant with her first child at the time. Sarah Elliott
```json
[{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3790123/after-the-spring-women-of-the-revolution/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3790123/after-the-spring-women-of-the-revolution/"},"headline":"After the Spring: Women of the Arab Revolution","datePublished":"2012-07-09T08:00:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:41:01.986Z","description":"As Libya and Egypt hold nationwide elections, LightBox presents the work of Sarah Elliott, whose photographs show those who had the most at stake after the revolutions: women.","url":"https://time.com/3790123/after-the-spring-women-of-the-revolution/","keywords":["LightBox","women","elections","Libya","Egypt","Arab Spring","democracy","Islam","Cairo","In Progress"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4eb2a8770fc7836b/698688aacd804d0d43cca153/hervoicecounts_03.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ishaan Tharoor","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ishaan-tharoor/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4eb2a8770fc7836b/698688aacd804d0d43cca153/hervoicecounts_03.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Women of the Arab Spring","caption":"Tripoli, Libya. September 2011. Women of all ages gathered by the thousands in Tripoli's Martyrs' Square to celebrate the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.","creditText":"Sarah Elliott","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-lightbox/","name":"LightBox"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3790123/after-the-spring-women-of-the-revolution/","name":"After the Spring: Women of the Arab Revolution"}}]}]
```