Award-winning war reporter Marie Colvin, that has roughed it in Kosovo and East Timor, contends that women don’t have actually to utilize feminine wiles to win the battle for tales

Issue accustomed make me bristle. It irritated me personally to genuinely believe that I would personally be judged as a lady war correspondent instead of as a journalist, using the exact same dangers and within the story that is same my male colleagues.

My emotions had been barely brand brand brand new. “Feminists nark me,” had written Martha Gellhorn, among the war that is great for the century. “I think they’ve done a dreadful disservice to females, branding us as ‘women’s writers’. No body claims males authors; before, we had been all just authors.”

I have already been wars that are covering 13 years now, from the time the Us americans bombed Libya in 1986. In those times war reporting ended up being very much a world that is man’s. It seemed vital that you merge and also the way that is only accomplish that would be to be “one associated with the boys”. Now, approximately 25 % of this correspondents addressing any conflict will be feminine.

The image for the glamorous feminine correspondent, weighed straight down by mascara, fluttering her eyelashes and showing a little bit of leg, can be dated as a 1950s Life mag spread, if it ever ended up being true. Yet Ann Leslie, international correspondent associated with frequent Mail, has simply revived the misconception in a guide, Secrets associated with the Press. Acting the “harmless bird brain”, “chirruping” about cooking and “twittering” about babies, helps secure the scoops, she contends.

We have and then think about myself in Kosovo and East Timor to laugh.

In March I stepped within the Albanian mountains into Kosovo with a product for the Kosovo Liberation Army. The war was being reported second-hand from videos and briefings in Nato head office and from stories told by fleeing refugees. Continue reading Do women report wars differently from guys? →