Time magazine's  is a tribute to their heroism and silent suffering. However, the poignant images and story fail to reflect the determined achievements of a women's movement that has battled cultural and Islamist misogyny. They deserve more from the West.

Ironically, women in Afghanistan had greater opportunities for education and employment under colonial rule, including that of the Soviets. Tribal traditions and a male-dominated reading of Islam have produced a deeply rooted ideology of women as temptresses, who must be kept under control to avoid "fitna" or social strife, thereby safeguarding the "peace of Islam." In this patriarchal society, a man's honor, bound by the behavior of his female relatives, may be defended with violence. Girls are traded to settle family disputes, and rural tribal courts dispense summary justice that can overrule central authority.

Female Catholic priests, deemed excommunicate by Rome, buried two of their own this month, neither one in a Catholic cemetery. "They threw us away," says a surviving member of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, which marked its first deaths.

An Egyptian-born Muslim journalist living in New York is one of the new wave of iMuslims who are using the internet to push reform in Islam. Like the "Men in Headscarves" campaign by Iranian men who've posted pictures of themselves on the internet, Mona protests the covering of women as a human rights issue. She was recently awarded the Anvil of Freedom Award from the University of Denver for outstanding contributions to the field of journalism. Rachael Kohn interviews her at home in New York.