Who is Enas Taleb?

Enas Taleb is
an Iraqi actress, talk show host, and businesswoman. Taleb began her acting
career at the age of 16. The forty-two-year-old actress is a popular television
personality and has a huge social media following. She was in the news recently
for initiating legal action against The Economist. 

Also Read: Article on ‘fat’ Arab women sparks uproar over body-shaming

An article dated
July 28, 2022, in The Economist, published a report on the BMI gap between the
genders in the Middle East. Enas Taleb’s photo was used as an illustration of
how Arab women are more prone to putting on weight. 

Why Women are fatter than men in
the Arab world, was the headline of the article above the photograph of Taleb
waving onstage at an arts festival. The article suggested that women in these
regions do not get a chance to indulge in physical work, which leads to
obesity. It also stated Taleb’s bodily curves are seen as the beauty ideal by
Iraqis. “Fat,” a word now considered taboo in much of Western media, was
repeated six times, the Associated Press reported.

Also Read: South Korea’s presidential race puts misogyny in spotlight

The incident
brought forth the issue of body shaming which is rarely discussed in the
region. Taleb told AP from Baghdad, “If there’s a student who goes to school
and hears mean comments and students bullying her for being fat, how would she
feel?” She added that the article stands as an insult not only to her rather a
violation of the rights of all Iraqi and Arab women. She mentioned that “They
used my photo in this context in a harmful, negative way”. 

Also Read: Youth in Bengal vow to stop child marriages, violence against children

The actress
said she would be suing the London-based magazine for defamation, according to
Washingtonpost.com. Taleb said that she hopes her defamation case serves as a message
for “women to say, I love myself… to be strong, to confront those
difficulties”. 

Enas Taleb was
born in Basra, Iraq on January 21, 1980. She graduated from the Institute of
Fine Arts in 2000. She then joined The University of Baghdad, College of Fine
Arts, Department of Radio and Television. She completed her journalism at
the University of Petra, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Journalism
and Media. The actress is known for her work, The Shadow Men, Manawi Ak Basha
and Lew Kunt Al-Qad.