It's very hard to turn your back once you're aware of what's going on, and you're aware of the injustices, and you're aware of the civilian casualties. It's much easier if you have no idea and you've never seen it.
Lynsey AddarioRead
As a Western woman in the Middle East, I am often put in a different category. I am sort of like the third sex. I am not treated like a man. I am not treated like a woman. I am just treated like a journalist. That is usually really helpful.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the unique perspective of a Western woman navigating cultural differences in the Middle East, emphasizing her professional identity over gender roles.
Lynsey Addario's quote highlights her experience as a Western journalist in the Middle East, where she finds herself categorized differently than traditional gender norms would dictate. This distinction allows her to break free from the constraints typically associated with being either a man or a woman in that region, focusing instead on her role as a journalist, which can provide her an advantageous perspective and credibility in her work.
Themes
JournalismGenderIdentityCultureMiddle EastWestern Woman
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared in discussions about women's empowerment in different cultural contexts.
More from Lynsey Addario
All quotes →I do think my childhood is one of the fundamental reasons that I'm able to do my job. We were raised in this totally nonjudgmental family. We never knew who was going to walk in the front door. And as a journalist and a photographer, you walk into so many different scenes that you have to be open to everything.
Lynsey AddarioRead
My strength is looking for composition and light, and I think those things come in the quieter times of war or photographing people affected on the margins of war - civilians, refugees; that is where I really excel.
Lynsey AddarioRead
Don't expect things to happen fast. Be empathetic with the people you are photographing. Don't be concerned about money.
Lynsey AddarioRead
If people really saw what was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, then they might be marching in the streets to end wars. But you know, I think that no one ever sees because we're not allowed to see, and we're not allowed to publish what we do see. So it's quite difficult.
Lynsey AddarioRead
Look, I would say that anyone who does this work and doesn't have a strain of idealism is an adrenaline junkie or completely narcissistic. There is no other justification. You're risking your life, and if anything happens, it's our families who suffer tremendously.
Lynsey AddarioRead
Similar quotes
All things I do are in every woman. Every woman is Medea. Every woman is Jocasta. There comes a time when a woman is a mother to her husband. Clytemnestra is every woman when she kills.
Martha GrahamRead
Commitment, by its nature, frees us from ourselves and, while it stands us in opposition to some, it joins us with others similarly committed. Commitment moves us from the mirror trap of the self absorbed with the self to the freedom of a community of shared values.
Michael LewisRead
Don't be ashamed if you don't like what others pretend to love
Emma WatsonRead
Whether we appreciate it or not, we live out our lives surrounded by an intricate pattern of social connections... We're all embedded in this network; it affects us profoundly and we may be unaware of its existence, of its effect on us.
Nicholas A. ChristakisRead
Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.
James A. BaldwinRead
There are real-world, devastating consequences for disabled women marginalised by the kinds of attitudes that deny them full agency over what happens to their bodies.
Stella YoungRead