麻豆社

Owen Bennett Jones introduces two dispatches examining how women are seen and treated around the world. The 麻豆社's Shaimaa Khalil has worn the hijab for a decade and is a believing Muslim - so why has she given up wearing a headscarf? In a deeply personal essay, she describes the background to her decision and the reactions which it has provoked. And in rural Rwanda, a setting of sometimes desperate poverty where girls and women can be at the bottom of the social pecking order, Caroline Rigby sees how bicycles are helping some to pedal their way to higher status and a brighter future.

Producer: Polly Hope
Photo: Two medical students chat outside Basra University's School of Medicine, Iraq, 28 May 2003. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)