Indignant Saudi women on Tuesday turned the tables on Karen Hughes, the US under secretary for public diplomacy, rejecting her analogy of them as the “broken wing” of a bird that the US will help fly.

The lesson in Arab pride came in the setting of a women’s university auditorium in Saudi Arabia’s coastal city of Jeddah, the second stop of Mrs Hughes’ listening tour of the Middle East that kicks off her campaign to mend America’s own broken image among Muslims.