Presentation “Balas para todas” by Natalia Sancha
20 December 2021. From 18:30 | Cultural activity | Spanish | Sala d'Actes de l'IEMed
Presentation of the book “Balas para todas. Seis mujeres periodistas en Oriente Medio y el Magreb”, coordinated by Natalia Sancha (Larrad Ediciones, Madrid, 2021). Natalia Sancha is a former correspondent for El País in Lebanon and Syria.
As the author of the book points out, the narratives about all women in countries at war have changed substantially. Since the 1990s, the term “women and children” has become synonymous with “victims.” Women, 50% of the population in these conflict-ravaged countries, were reduced to helpless, two-dimensional, and pitiful characters in men’s stories about wars fought by men. Here are our stories from their stories. But instead of reflecting on what was forbidden to us, we wrote about what we, and only we, had access to. Our male colleagues were banned from these spaces while we, as hybrids between journalists and women, traveled through universes. From the front line, where we embedded ourselves with male and female militiamen, we were able to move to the rear to enter the private spaces generally reserved for women. There, we discovered all the ways that women are not, as we have been told, “helpless victims.” They are radicalized members of ISIS who recruited other women for the jihadist struggle; They are the economic engines that take over companies when wars widow them; They are the young university students who fight hard to continue studying, to be financially independent.
Tomás Alcoverro, journalist and correspondent for La Vanguardia in the Middle East, and Senén Florensa, executive president of the IEMed also participate in the event.
Speakers
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