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War reporting is not easy, and even less so people doubt your abilities just because you're a woman. Here are 6 female journalists who went to the frontlines!
War reporting is not an easy job, and even less so when you have people doubting your abilities just because you’re a woman. Here are 6 female journalists who went to the frontlines!
Female journalists are often accused of being ‘soft’ journalists, who do the desk job and ‘easy’ reporting on fields like culture. The journalism industry has traditionally been a fairly male-dominated area. A female journalist is often stereotyped as a necessarily thick-kajal-applying, nose-ring-wearing, cigarette-smoking woman who sleeps around. I mean, that’s almost all the representation I’ve seen in Bollywood movies of female journalists and reporters. But real-life female journalists have way more substance than what people assume them to have.
Being present at war-torn areas, reporting the happenings consistently and conducting interviews in potentially fatal situations is not something that we laypersons associate with women much. But here we have some amazing female journalists who managed to shatter these myths by their praise-worthy work!
Image Courtesy: feminisminindia.com
India’s first photo-journalist, and quite possibly the first Indian woman journalist to go on the war scenes, Vyarawalla was the woman who paved the way for women in the journalism industry. She had the chance to cover World War II on her camera in the Asian side of the war. (Read more here.) She was awarded the Padma Vibushan in 2011, the second highest civillian award of India.
Image courtesy: Wikipedia
An American journalist who has been called the one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century by the London Daily Telegraph, Martha Gellhorn was probably the first ever woman war correspondent who covered the World War II, and then later the Vietnamese War and the American Civil Wars.
Noted journalist Barkha Dutt’s mother, Prabha Dutt was the first Indian woman reporter to go out into the frontlines and report a war, which comes as a surprise since this was not reported much into the media. Quite a rebel, she took a few days of leave to secretly cover the 1965 Indo-Pak war which she was not permitted to do by her paper. She made her way onto the are on her own and her coverage was, indeed, published. There is also a prestigious fellowship in her name. You can read more here.
Image Courtesy: Wikipedia
Possibly the most famous female journalist of India and a recipient of the Padma Shri award, Barkha Dutt is known by the media to be among the top female war correspondents of the country. She made her name by covering the Kargil war in 1999. Her videos and interviews from the war front have been iconic, to say the least, even though there has been controvery around her being on the frontlines.
Image courtesy: Youtube
A British journalist, Alex Crawford is the famous journalist who reported the raid of Gaddafi’s compound and was a part of the rebel forces convoy. Her coverage has been classed as bold and daring, considering the live reporting that she did of the war in Libya against Gaddafi. Her videos of the war are available online easily.
A famous news correspondent with Al Jazeera, Zeina Khodr has been reporting in the midst of many war areas. Beginning from Pakistan and Afghanistan, she was one of the first correspondents to report from Tripoli, Libya. She received the ‘the ITV Achievement of the Year Award’, for her coverage of the Fall of Tripoli, from Women in Film And TV Awards, UK. Currently, she works in the areas of unrestful area of Turkey, Lebanon and Syria.
Are you feeling all the boldness emanating from these amazing women yet? I am! This is some serious inspiration, and a big ‘Shut Up’ to all those blabbering mouths which say that women can’t do some things. What do you think?
New Delhi, India I like to read, write, and talk. A feminist through and through, with a soft spot for chocolate. read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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