The old quota system was bad, acknowledges Mozn Hassan, the director of Nazra for Feminist Studies, a Cairo-based organisation that researches women's rights and whose members include a number of Islamic feminists.

ECONOMIST: Women and the Arab awakening

She moved to North Carolina in 1992 to pursue a Masters of Theological Studies at Duke University, where she studied feminist and liberation theology.

WHITEHOUSE: Melinda Wiggins | The White House