When her husband, President Ashraf Ghani, took the helm of the nation eight months ago, he did something unprecedented — he introduced his wife in his inaugural speech. [...] her words have always been soft-spoken, measured and delivered away from the center stage of the Afghan political scene. What she does do, she says, is listen. Since September, hundreds of people have streamed through her cool, wood-paneled meeting room to share their problems and seek the first lady's advice. Soraya's modern approach to women's issues and her refusal to wear a veil shocked many Afghans, and history texts hold her partly to blame for the demise of the monarchy. A ferocious backlash from conservative and religious figures followed, and her husband's political enemies claimed she and her children were neither Afghan nor Muslim and as such unacceptable to the Afghan people. Inevitably, women are the focus of her work, though she denounces what she says is a Western media portrayal of Afghan women as victims of misogynistic social and religious traditions. "If you have a harmonious society where people within the family are living in harmony ...