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When Americans hear about women in the Middle East, it's all too likely that some form of the word oppression will be part of the discussion. The U.S. media seems to exclusively cover the oppressive situations women face in the Islamic world, while failing to cover any of the many improvements in women's rights. This leads many Americans to have an extremely negative picture of women's rights in the Islamic world and to associate Islam with inequality for women.

My inside perspective of the Middle East is a bit different. During the past three months I have conducted some 45 interviews with people from throughout the region on Middle Eastern affairs (I hope to turn the findings from this research into a book). Among the 20 women I interviewed were a manager of branches for a bank and two entrepreneurs who had started a design company and a real estate company respectively. Surprisingly there were no complaints of oppression even from the Saudi woman I interviewed. The unanimous opinion of the women I have interviewed has been that the state of women's rights in the region is good and has improved dramatically over the past decade.

What was more surprising than this consensus was the response to the question of what is the next step for women in the region. A majority of my interviewees said nothing was needed, while only a few said they would like to see more women in high political positions. Overall, even I have been surprised by these results. I would have guessed there would be more complaints from women in the region.