Rebecca Barlow

Rebecca Barlow is a PhD student at the Centre for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies in Melbourne. She reported for openDemocracy from the first International Nobel Women's Initiative conference in Galway, Ireland in June 2007.

Recent articles

Rebecca Barlow is inspired by the Iranian women she met on a trip to Tehran. Please note, all names have been changed in order to protect privacies.

This International Women's Day I would like to express my support and deepest respects to the amazing members of the Iranian Women's Movement, some of whom I met whilst on a trip to Tehran in July 2007. During my short stay in that fascinating city, one particular traveller's cliché came true: so many women implored me to tell people in my own community what Iranian women ‘are really like' - beyond the popular western imagination and the images of submission and servitude conjured up in the speeches of western leaders such as President Bush. Perhaps here I can make a brief contribution to that end.

Rebecca L Barlow reports from the Nobel Women's Initiative conference on the power of women's 'counter-stories' to challenge the master narrative of war and lead their communities towards sustainable peace.