Team Lioness is the name given to a group of female soliders, (and the documentary about them) who were some of the first women in modern American warfare to engage in frontline combat — something that is officially forbidden by the military. "The female support soliders were assigned to the 1st Engineer Battalion and they were recruited to accompany Marine units during raids. Originally, the female soldiers were there to search and detain any women they came upon and to guard the unit's Arabic interpreter. Over time, however, as the situation in Ramadi deteriorated, the Marine units transitioned into a more offensive role, baiting insurgents into firefights in order to draw them out. Until officers higher up the chain got spooked over the possibility of a female soldier killed in combat and quietly disbanded the unit, members of Team Lioness were often right in the thick of things, including some of the fiercest urban firefights of the Iraq War."
posted by nooneyouknow on Nov 14, 2008 - 22 comments

Women Explorers and Travellers of Asia and the Middle East - In an age where women struggled for basic human rights, these individuals were literal trailblazers. Leaving their homelands for varying motivations (but often due to dissatisfaction with their social lot in life), they devoted their lives to "explore these antique lands before they are irretrievably caught up in the cacaphonic whirl of the modern world." [more inside]
posted by ikahime on Aug 1, 2008 - 10 comments

American-Dutch photographer Peter van Agtmael and English photographer Olivia Arthur are the two newest nominees recently welcomed into Magnum Photos. Agtmael's images of Afghanistan and Iraq are very powerful - he discusses his work in Conscientious. Arthur's recent work has focused on women's experiences in what she calls the Middle Distance. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Jul 8, 2008 - 8 comments

Born to War is a series of paintings of American women killed in Iraq. The combination of the increasing role of women in the American military and the blurring of lines between combat and non-combat roles in Iraq have made this the first war in which female US soldiers have died in direct combat. The focus on a smaller number of women provides a more approachable view of casualties than more general sites like Iraq Body Count and raises some interesting questions about the role of women in the US military.
posted by scottreynen on Feb 23, 2007 - 13 comments

Rumors of rape fan anti-American flames "They are raping our women!" - This is the eternal tribalistic cry and lament, often all too true but also often used as a baseless or exaggerated claim for war propaganda, to incite to hatred of a "barbaric" enemy who commits unspeakable acts ( see The "Rape of Kuwait"). The history of Rape in Warfare is long and may be instinctually driven, at least in part. Now, mass rumors spreading through Turkey - which seem to have inspired a recent indigenous Turkish terrorist car bombing - allege mass rapes of Iraqi women by American troops. "There are more than 4000 rape events on the record" claimed the Turkish journal Yeni Safak, on October 22, "citing" (though the purported supporting citation contains nothing about such atrocities) internet sex therapist Dr. Susan Block's piece on the metaphorical "Rape of Iraq"[ Warning : preceding link is NSFW ! Here's the work-safe CounterPunch version]. Having more or less invented modern PR and propaganda techniques (see Ed. Bernays, Ivy Lee) - handy during both war and peace - Americans are now on the receiving end of Propaganda's use of the shameless lie. (identification of "mystery meat" links inside)
posted by troutfishing on Jan 7, 2004 - 13 comments

Women in Iraq
some worry that women are being sidelined as never before. Thikra Nadr, a novelist in her mid-forties who published a tale about a government that ruined the country through deprivation and war, said she cannot remember a time when women had less visibility or freedom. “The long period of sanctions reduced the role of women in Iraq,” she said as a generator roared across the street from her ground-floor apartment in the middle-class Mansour district. “But this period we’re living in right now has completely canceled the role of women in society.”
Isn't it time that this issue was addressed? Or was the "liberation" talk just another sound bite from the spin machine?
posted by nofundy on May 21, 2003 - 19 comments

Sending the pregnant to fight Saddam: The dramatic rescue of GI Jessica brings up the issue [preemptive post justification]. This article has a nice historical overview of women's role in the military, in the form of a time-travel dialogue between today's soldier and a Vietnam era grunt.
posted by hairyeyeball on Apr 3, 2003 - 22 comments