The War On Women

‘She showed great courage and commitment in reporting from Burma and exemplified my belief that the best journalists are also the nicest’ – Aung San Suu Kyi ‘One of the most distinguished television journalists of her generation’ – Huw Edwards ‘Brilliant and indefatigable’ – Jeremy Bowen ‘She had something you call moral courage and it rubbed off on others’ – David Aaronovitch ‘She set the standard for bravery in many of the world’s nastiest places’ – John Fisher Burns, New York Times ‘She went to dangerous places to give a voice to people who otherwise would not be heard’ – Tony Hall, BBC Director General In 1973, Sue Lloyd-Roberts joined ITN as a news trainee and went on to be one of the UK's first video-journalists to report from the bleak outposts of the Soviet Union. Travelling as a tourist, she also gained access to some of the world’s most impenetrable places like China, Tibet and Burma. During her 40-year-long career she witnessed the worst atrocities inflicted on women across the world. But in observing first-hand the war on the female race she also documented their incredible determination to fight back. The War on Women brings to life the inconceivable and dangerous life Sue led. It tells the story of orphan Mary Merritt who, age sixteen, instead of being released from the care of nuns was interned by them in a Magdalen Laundry and forced to work twelve hours a day six days a week, without pay, for over a decade. She gives voice to Maimouna, the woman responsible for taking over her mother’s role as the village female circumciser in The Gambia and provides a platform for the 11-year-old Manemma, who was married off in Jaipur at the age of six. From the gender pay gap in Britain to forced marriage in Kashmir and from rape as a weapon of war to honour killings, Sue has examined humankind’s history and takes us on a journey to analyse the state of women’s lives today. Most importantly she acts as a mouthpiece for the brave ones; the ones who challenge wrongdoing; the ones who show courage no matter how afraid they are; the ones who are combatting violence across the globe; the ones who are fighting back. Sue sadly died in 2015, shortly after writing this book, today she is widely recognised as one of the most acclaimed television journalists of her generation. This book is the small tribute to the full and incredible life she lived and through it these women’s voices are still being heard.

For the first time in history, women make up half the educated labor force and are earning the majority of advanced degrees. It should be the best time ever for women, and yet... it’s not. Storm clouds are gathering, and the worst thing is that most women don’t have a clue what could be coming. In large part this is because the message they’re being fed is that they now have it made. But do they? In The New Soft War on Women, respected experts on gender issues and the psychology of women Caryl Rivers and Rosalind C. Barnett argue that an insidious war of subtle biases and barriers is being waged that continues to marginalize women. Although women have made huge strides in recent years, these gains have not translated into money and influence. Consider the following: - Women with MBAs earn, on average, $4,600 less than their male counterparts in their first job out of business school. - Female physicians earn, on average, 39 percent less than male physicians. - Female financial analysts take in 35 percent less, and female chief executives one quarter less than men in similar positions. In this eye-opening book, Rivers and Barnett offer women the real facts as well as tools for combating the “soft war” tactics that prevent them from advancing in their careers. With women now central to the economy, determining to a large degree whether it thrives or stagnates, this is one war no one can afford for them to lose.

The man who wrote THE book on battered women in Canada, international bestselling writer Brian Vallée returns to the domestic battlefield. Twenty years ago, in an international bestselling book entitled Life with Billy , investigative journalist and documentary producer Brian Vallée shone a spotlight on the dirty little secret of what was then known as âdomestic abuse.â In The War on Women Vallée revisits the domestic battlefield, revealing that the War on Women by the intimate men in their lives continues; that the fallen in this War are more likely to be ignored than honoured; that the refugee camps of this War are called âsheltersâ; and that the number of men being killed by their spouses has dropped by more than 70 percent since the inception of shelters, while the number of women being killed has dropped by less than 25 percent. Thatâs right, shelters save menâs lives! Vallée was compelled to revisit the domestic battlefield when he was contacted by Calgary music promoter Elly Armour, who harboured a dark secret. She had once been a battered wife. In Nova Scotia in 1951, her husband brutally beat her and forced his way into a locked room where she was trying to hide. A teenaged mother of two with a third on the way, Elly shot her husband dead with his own hunting rifle. She was charged with the capital murder of Vernon Ince. Through the years, Elly never talked about the shooting or the abuse. Not until more than half a century later when, her health failing and upset at the number of women still being murdered and abused by their intimate partners, Miss Elly contacted Brian Vallee and asked him to reveal her secrets.

In a book that radically and fundamentally revises the way we think about war, Miriam Cooke charts the emerging tradition of women's contributions to what she calls the "War Story," a genre formerly reserved for men. Concentrating on the contemporary literature of the Arab world, Cooke looks at how alternatives to the master narrative challenge the authority of experience and the permission to write. She shows how women who write themselves and their experiences into the War Story undo the masculine contract with violence, sexuality, and glory. There is no single War Story, Cooke concludes; the standard narrative—and with it the way we think about and conduct war—can be changed. As the traditional time, space, organization, and representation of war have shifted, so have ways of describing it. As drug wars, civil wars, gang wars, and ideological wars have moved into neighborhoods and homes, the line between combat zones and safe zones has blurred. Cooke shows how women's stories contest the acceptance of a dyadically structured world and break down the easy oppositions—home vs. front, civilian vs. combatant, war vs. peace, victory vs. defeat—that have framed, and ultimately promoted, war.

Drawing on family materials, historical records, and eyewitness accounts, this book shows the impact of war on individual women caught up in diverse and often treacherous situations. It relates stories of partisans in Holland, an Italian woman carrying guns and provisions in the face of hostile soldiers, and Kikuyu women involved in the Mau Mau insurrection in Kenya. A woman displaced from Silesia recalls fleeing with children across war-torn Germany, and women caught up in conflicts in Burma and in Rwanda share their tales. War's aftermath can be traumatic, as shown by journalists in Libya and by a midwife on the Cambodian border who helps refugees to give birth and regain hope. Finally, British women on active service in Afghanistan and at NATO headquarters also speak.

Jean Elshtain examines how the myths of Man as "Just Warrior" and Woman as "Beautiful Soul" serve to recreate and secure women's social position as noncombatants and men's identity as warriors. Elshtain demonstrates how these myths are undermined by the reality of female bellicosity and sacrificial male love, as well as the moral imperatives of just wars.

The book examines gender roles, gender inequity, and the impacts of both unintentional and purposeful efforts to undermine women's equal treatment in the United States, documenting what women have faced in the past and still face in America today. Although women's rights is a worldwide issue, this book examines how in the United States, an alleged "war on women" is still occurring. Are there only forces opposing women's equality that aim to subvert women's advancement, or are defensive strategies employed as well? What has been the offensive response from women and supportive groups of women? Is there actually substantial evidence of a "war on women," or is the idea primarily political rhetoric? Are the actions and behaviors contributing to gender inequality intentional or unintentional? In this unique collection, experts from multiple disciplines analyze the U.S. women's rights movement, developments, progress, and obstacles. The chapters extend the analogy of this fight for equal rights with a war to document how women's struggle for gender equality is simultaneously a health issue, a political issue, and a wider issue of social justice—a formidable challenge in which women's lives are sometimes literally at stake and at risk. The book's contributors and editors take the unique angle of eyeing the fight for equality on the same level as a war, analyzing this "war" on historical/social/cultural levels (the "battlefield"); identifying policy, political, and legal issues ("major battles"); and explaining how to best fight on personal or individual levels ("skirmishes"). The coverage includes current federal and state initiatives that have fueled concern that women's rights are under continued assault. All of the nearly 162 million women in the United States—and their family members, regardless of sex—are affected by the issues addressed in this book.