An interesting overview of powerful women in the Middle East. I like the fact that Qatar's First Lady has an official position in the Education department and isn't just a figurehead.

Women To Watch In The Middle East - Forbes.com: "Slowly but surely, change is happening amid the feudal monarchies of the Middle East.

Women recently voted in an unprecedented election in Iraq. Women now vote in Bahrain, Israel, Oman, Qatar and Turkey. Kuwait is on the verge of giving women the vote in parliamentary elections, however token that right may be. Women aren't allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, but the first women cab drivers made history hitting the roads in the United Arab Emirates.

Such small, tentative steps are starting to change the political and economic life of the region, where many women suffer under centuries-old customs. Familial honor trumps women's rights. In certain Arab lands, honor killings include beheading, stoning and being buried alive for women whose behavior is deemed 'un-Islamic' or is seen as imitating Western values.

One reason that Middle East economies lag is that they do not fully tap their vast resource of female talent. Two out of five women older than 15 in the region are illiterate. Just 20% of women are in the labor force, according to the Population Reference Bureau. A World Bank study estimated that the region's average annual growth in per-capita gross national product would have been nearly a full percentage point higher between 1960 and 1992 if the Middle East gender gap in education had shrunk as quickly as East Asia's did. "