Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi sent armoured forces into a western town to reassert control today but ran into rebel resistance and Arab satellite television channels said tanks fired at residential buildings.

Among the most prevalent Western stereotypes about Muslim countries are those concerning Muslim women: doe-eyed, veiled, and submissive, exotically silent, gauzy inhabitants of imagined harems, closeted behind rigid gender roles. So where were these women in Tunisia and Egypt?