Women like Mary Roberts Rhinehart have been reporting from conflict zones since WWI (1914-1918). But it took women like Christiane Amanpour to finally shatter the glass ceiling among war correspondents during the Gulf War (1990-1991).
Now the archives of print and TV news organizations are replete with reports by female war correspondents, including Marie Colvin, Janine di Giovanni, Arwa Damon, Alex Crawford, and others, which prove they are (and always were) wholly equal to the task – in every respect.
Of course, the dangers inherent in reporting from conflict zones obtain whether the reporter is a man or woman….
All the same, there’s no denying that everything from cultural norms to universal chauvinism present unique challenges and vulnerabilities for women reporters.
The open and notorious sexual assault against CBS reporter Lara Logan, while reporting on the uprisings that attended Egypt’s Arab Spring, threw this into shocking relief.
In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers…
She is currently in the hospital recovering.
(CBS News, February 15, 2011)
Clearly, I couldn’t possibly relate to the trauma she experienced. But I could relate to her determination to return to work as soon as possible. Not least because, just as any woman could, any Black could empathize with her not wanting to give credence to gender stereotypes about female reporters not having what it takes to work in conflict zones. No woman in the vanguard of those debunking these stereotypes would want to be the first to let the side down.
Nonetheless, I feared Logan’s determination would not serve her well in this case. More to the point, when I read that she was returning within weeks to this conflict zone – where she stood out like a stranded gazelle in the midst of a pride of lions – I cautioned her against doing so.
I was wrong, however, to focus so much on her role as a mother:
[This] suggests that she is psychologically disassociated not just from her body, but from her maternal instincts as well… I just find it more than a little peculiar that a mother would be so eager to get so far away from her practically new-born child to cover this story with all of the obvious dangers it entails.
(“Egyptian Protesters Sexually Assault U.S. Reporter,” The iPINIONS Journal, February 18, 2011)
Instead, I should have equated the trauma of a woman being raped with that of a man being tortured, noting that both cause post-traumatic stress disorders that would make returning to a conflict zone untenable.
Alas, I later compounded my error with this, arguably, sexist suggestion:
Lara is a very good reporter. But she will do well to limit her reporting to more prosaic topics from the relatively safe confines of the United States – as she did last night with her report for 60 Minutes on African game hunting … in Texas.
(“’Sustained Sexual Assault’ on CBS Reporter by Egyptian Protesters,” The iPINIONS Journal, January 30, 2012)
This is why I found the report Logan presented on Sunday’s edition of 60 Minutes as surprising as it was ironic.
I found it surprising because, just weeks ago, she was still suffering such debilitating PTSD that she had to be re-admitted to hospital.
CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan has been readmitted to a Washington, D.C., hospital, the network said on Tuesday, reportedly for complications stemming from the sexual assault she survived while covering Egypt’s political uprising in 2011.
(Reuters, March 24, 2015)
Incidentally, Logan made a widely reported return to work last June. This, after serving a nine-month mandatory leave – not for health reasons but for presenting a “faulty Benghazi report” in the fall of 2012 that gave the network a “black eye.” At the risk of claiming I told you so, many industry analysts attributed her ill-fated participation in that report to her determination to reclaim her enviable position on the team at 60 Minutes as soon as possible.
I found it ironic because she reported on precisely the kinds of “soft news” (i.e., free of stress and/or danger – unlike Benghazi), which, even though unwittingly sexist, I suggested would suit her best – given her PTSD.
Explorer Bob Ballard gives 60 Minutes Lara Logan a tour of the artifacts housed at the legendary Explorers Club in New York.
(CBS News, May 10, 2015)
Ballard became famous for discovering the RMS Titanic in 1985. Logan reported on his seafaring adventures these days to find some of the reported $1 trillion in sunken treasure resting in waters off American shores.
Unfortunately, neither she nor 60 Minutes made any reference on Sunday to her hospital stay in March. Therefore, despite my efforts to find out, I don’t know if she recovered well enough to report this story, or if she taped it before suffering her (latest) relapse.
Whatever the case, consider this my belated get-well commentary to Lara.
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Sexual assault on Logan…