The Woman Who Fell From The Sky

From: The Sydney Morning Herald

One of the sad byproducts of a world addicted to sound bites and short, sharp analysis is the inevitable stereotyping produced by such vacuous, and ultimately inaccurate, shorthand. Thus mention the words “Arab”, “women” and “Yemen” and the usual stereotypes of “Islamic terrorists”, “kidnappings”, “stonings”, “honour killings” are automatically triggered.

This book, from a US journalist who has lived and worked in the country (she first went to run a journalism course and returned to edit the English-language Yemen Observer) is an antidote to stereotypes and blind prejudice. Steil does not deny that Yemen is home to a lot of radical groups, that kidnapping of foreigners is a problem and that women are, by Western standards, treated differently (and often badly). But she also points out that the Yemenis are incredibly generous, that she is embraced by her staff and that often what seems alien to outsiders can be understood by those who can accept not all societies work the same way.

In the case of Zuhra, a girl who works for her paper and is forbidden by her uncles to study medicine, Steil points out: “When Yemeni women and girls have no father or husband, their lives are handed over to their uncles or brothers. Women cannot be trusted with the reins of their own lives. This Yemeni emphasis on controlling and defending women is a result of the importance of sharaf [honour] in society … Honor is communal as well as individual; when one man is shamed, his whole tribe is shamed.”

It is this kind of fair analysis that makes this book so special and so insightful. The image of the Yemen that Steil paints is one of love, family, honour and, surprisingly, of women who are both powerful and liberated but, because of custom, unwilling to flaunt their beauty in public