Mavis Leno

Around the first anniversary of 9/11, the U.S. media portrayed Afghan women exclusively as traumatized, sad, helpless-looking victims, asking for support to relieve their suffering. In October of 2002, I was privileged to meet 14 Afghan women who were in Austin, Texas on a State Department tour. I found them to be very different from the media images. As a photographer who had lived in the Middle East, with connections in Afghanistan, I saw that I could provide a more complete pi...

Leno and his wife, Mavis Leno, have been married for three decades with no children. The couple works aggressively to combat gender apartheid in Afghanistan. Leno owns about 100 cars and 90 motorcycles and writes for his Web site, Jay Leno's Garage,