Tell me about the women with guns
Through a Different Lens
Women Bring the News from Israel
By Helen Schary Motro
Lilith
Winter 2005
Women journalists, soldiers, mothers, and residents of Israel and Palestine do their jobs despite patriarchal oppression – that’s one point.
Women journalists are both competent and more inclined to focus on the human aspect’ of the story – that’s another point.
Women journalists are able to interview women, and connect with people, in this region because they are female (women are not allowed to speak to men outside of their immediate family in this region) and they have stories about children and family that they can use to connect with the people they are interviewing – that’s yet another point.
On the one hand I found the discourse on what women journalists tend to cover (as opposed to men) interesting. Why is it that covering the ‘human’ aspect of a story is considered so much ‘less’ an avenue of reporting than counting the number of bombs, or trucks, or soldier, or dead? Isn’t the affect on human lives, due the large and weeping events occurring around them, the whole point?
But, that said, I also found myself wishing the journalists would spend less time talking about being journalists and more time talking about the women they mention in passing. The photograph of the three soldiers watching from the women’s section of the Netzarim synagogue as Torah scrolls are removed from the ark keeps drawing me back to it. Three women, each with an enormous gun slung over her back, a pointy tail down her neck, and matching green military uniforms, are standing close and intently watching something the camera does not show. On the one hand, they aren’t allowed into the main part of the synagogue because they are female. On the other, they are allowed into combat military while women in the US have to protest and fight for the same…privilege?…opportunity?…right?…(I’m really not sure how to describe being allowed to go to the front lines of a war – even if you want to be there).
I want to know more about the women in the uniforms. I want to know more about the settler with the baby in a sling around her neck. The Gaza Strip really isn’t a place I’ve ever wanted to go. Neither is Israel, but that’s more because I’ve never really thought about (and because I’ve always known that it’s one of those exceptionally dangerous places to travel). These photographs make me want to go there and meet those four women.
The article itself was interesting, but not so near as interesting as the photographs. Is it because the photographs don’t have a story connected to them? Would I be as interested if the article detailed their story and their lives? I think I would, but I might be more interested if they followed this story up with that one. Photographic teaser from one article to the next, I guess.
Regardless, I keep looking at those three women, in front of the white wall with the white curtains, standing close, arms around each other’s waists, as though the guns over their shoulders weren’t even there.
Women Bring the News from Israel
By Helen Schary Motro
Lilith
Winter 2005
Women journalists, soldiers, mothers, and residents of Israel and Palestine do their jobs despite patriarchal oppression – that’s one point.
Women journalists are both competent and more inclined to focus on the human aspect’ of the story – that’s another point.
Women journalists are able to interview women, and connect with people, in this region because they are female (women are not allowed to speak to men outside of their immediate family in this region) and they have stories about children and family that they can use to connect with the people they are interviewing – that’s yet another point.
On the one hand I found the discourse on what women journalists tend to cover (as opposed to men) interesting. Why is it that covering the ‘human’ aspect of a story is considered so much ‘less’ an avenue of reporting than counting the number of bombs, or trucks, or soldier, or dead? Isn’t the affect on human lives, due the large and weeping events occurring around them, the whole point?
But, that said, I also found myself wishing the journalists would spend less time talking about being journalists and more time talking about the women they mention in passing. The photograph of the three soldiers watching from the women’s section of the Netzarim synagogue as Torah scrolls are removed from the ark keeps drawing me back to it. Three women, each with an enormous gun slung over her back, a pointy tail down her neck, and matching green military uniforms, are standing close and intently watching something the camera does not show. On the one hand, they aren’t allowed into the main part of the synagogue because they are female. On the other, they are allowed into combat military while women in the US have to protest and fight for the same…privilege?…opportunity?…right?…(I’m really not sure how to describe being allowed to go to the front lines of a war – even if you want to be there).
I want to know more about the women in the uniforms. I want to know more about the settler with the baby in a sling around her neck. The Gaza Strip really isn’t a place I’ve ever wanted to go. Neither is Israel, but that’s more because I’ve never really thought about (and because I’ve always known that it’s one of those exceptionally dangerous places to travel). These photographs make me want to go there and meet those four women.
The article itself was interesting, but not so near as interesting as the photographs. Is it because the photographs don’t have a story connected to them? Would I be as interested if the article detailed their story and their lives? I think I would, but I might be more interested if they followed this story up with that one. Photographic teaser from one article to the next, I guess.
Regardless, I keep looking at those three women, in front of the white wall with the white curtains, standing close, arms around each other’s waists, as though the guns over their shoulders weren’t even there.
posted by A at 7:31 AM
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