Background: Dame Helen Lydia Mirren, (nee Mironoff; born 26 July 1945) is an English actor. Mirren began her acting career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967, and is one of the few performers who have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2007 for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen and received the Olivier Award for Best Actress and Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the same role in The Audience. Mirren's other Academy Award nominations include The Madness of King George (1994), Gosford Park (2001) and The Last Station (2009).
Context: Mirren's first film of the 2000s was Joel Hershman's Greenfingers (2000), a comedy based on the true story about the award-winning prisoners of HMP Leyhill, a minimum-security prison. Mirren portrayed a devoted plantswoman in the film, who coaches a team of prison gardeners, led by Clive Owen, to victory at a prestigious flower show. The project garnered largely lukewarm reviews from critics, who felt that it added "nothing new to this already saturated genre" of British feel-good films. The same year, she began work on the mystery film The Pledge, actor Sean Penn's second directorial effort, in which she played a child psychologist. A critical success, the ensemble film tanked at the box office. Also the year, she filmed the American-Icelandic satirical drama No Such Thing opposite Sarah Polley. Directed by Hal Hartley, Mirren portrayed a soulless television producer in the film, who strives for sensationalistic stories. It was largely panned by critics. Her biggest critical and commercial success, released in 2001, became Robert Altman's all-star ensemble mystery film Gosford Park. An homage to writer Agatha Christie's whodunit style, the story follows a party of wealthy Britons and an American, and their servants, who gather for a shooting weekend at an English country house, resulting in an unexpected murder. Widely acclaimed by critics, it received multiple awards and nominations, including a second Academy Award nomination and first Screen Actors Guild Award win for Mirren's portrayal of the sternly devoted head servant Mrs. Wilson. Mirren's last film that year was Fred Schepisi's dramedy film Last Orders opposite Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins. In 2003, Mirren starred in Nigel Cole's comedy Calendar Girls, inspired by the true story of a group of Yorkshire women who produced a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research under the auspices of the Women's Institutes. Mirren was initially resistant to join the project, at first dismissing it as another middling British picture, but rethought her decision upon learning of the casting of co-star Julie Walters. The film garnered generally positive reactions by film critics, and grossed $96,000,000 worldwide. In addition, the picture earned Satellite, Golden Globe, and European Film Award nominations for Mirren. Her other film that year was the Showtime television film The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone opposite Olivier Martinez, and Anne Bancroft, based on the 1950 novel of the same title by Tennessee Williams.
Question: What kind of roles did she play during this time?
Answer: Mirren portrayed a devoted plantswoman

Background: Women in Syria constitute 49.4% of Syria's population, and are active participants not only in everyday life, but also in the socio-political fields. Notable examples are president Assad's chief political and media adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, who also held office as Minister of Expatriates from 2002 and 2008, and Hadiya Khalaf Abbas, the officially elected speaker of the People's Council of Syria and the first woman to have held that position. Whatsoever, the Syrian Civil War put a new obstacle on Syrian women, forcing them to face increasing levels of violence, including war rape, and traditional abusive practices such as honor killings which occur in rural areas and areas held by extremist terrorists.
Context: In the 20th century a movement for women's rights developed in Syria, made up largely of upper-class, educated women. In 1919, Naziq al-Abid founded Noor al-Fayha (Light of Damascus), the city's first women's organization, alongside an affiliated publication of the same name. She was made an honorary general of the Syrian Army after fighting in the Battle of Maysaloun, and in 1922 she founded the Syrian Red Crescent. In 1928 Lebanese-Syrian feminist Nazira Zain al-Din, one of the first people to critically reinterpret the Quran from a feminist perspective, published a book condemning the practice of veiling or hijab, arguing that Islam requires women to be treated equally with men. In 1963 the Ba'th Party took power in Syria, and pledged full equality between women and men as well as full workforce participation for women. In 1967 Syrian women formed a quasi-governmental organization called the General Union of Syrian Women (GUSW), a coalition of women's welfare societies, educational associations, and voluntary councils intended to achieve equal opportunity for women in Syria. Women in Syria have also been integral in acts of nonviolence in response to the Syrian dictator, Bashar Al-Assad. In 2011, conflict was emerging throughout Syria due to the long reign of the Assad family. Throughout the 40 year reign, outbreaks of both nonviolent and violent acts emerged. Assad reacted to these actions by increasing arrests and the killings of Syrian men and women. In response to Assad's increasing arrests and killings, Syrian women and children gathered together. The women and children rallied together and marched to the main highway where they blocked the roadway. This act of nonviolence lead to civilians and military not being able to get where they were going to. This did not make the military very happy. The military came in with tanks and were making various threats towards the protesters but that did not scare them off. Later that day over one hundred Syrian prisoners were released. This was significant because the power women and children had through their nonviolent protest. Their issue of wanting their husbands and sons released from prison was understood by Syrian officials and they knew in order to get the women and children to leave would need to fulfill their demands.
Question: Have they made any political headway?
Answer:
She was made an honorary general of the Syrian Army after fighting in the Battle of Maysaloun, and in 1922 she founded the Syrian Red Crescent.