Kim Jong Un's wife, Ri Sol Ju, is known as the "Kate Middleton of North Korea." REUTERS/KCNA Behind every great man is a great woman, as they say. But who stands behind the world's dictators?

In good times and in bad, the ladies of the Dictators' Wives Club sure put up with a lot: corruption, political uprisings, and often other wives.

Some, like Rwandan first lady Jeannette Kagame, use their position to advocate for important charitable causes in their nations.

Others, like the president of Syria's wife, Asma al-Assad, are pros at looking the other way and smiling for official Instagram photos.

For this list, we defined a dictator as a near-absolute ruler known for human-rights abuses, restrictions on freedom of the press, and oppression of opposition.