Mr. Zaidi, whom Iraqi girls call informally by his first name, captured nearly everyone’s imagination here when he threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a Dec. 14 news conference with the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. While Iraqi men have been divided over Mr. Zaidi’s gesture, it was hard to find a woman who wholeheartedly disapproved of him.

In conversations with 20 women over the last several days, most expressed strikingly positive sentiments about him and much anger about the three years he must serve behind bars.