Female reporters feel like ‘third sex’ abroad
Written by on March 11th, 2010 in Latest News.
Nahlah Ayed, pictured here reporting from Israel last year, says a reporter’s first duty is to get the tale, not to be an aid worker. (CBC)Nahlah Ayed and Mellissa Fung, two CBC journalists who have reported extensively from abroad, say they are sometimes treated as a “third sex” in some countries.
“People often question me, ‘In the Middle East, you must have distress,’” said Ayed, a Montreal-based national reporter who has also reported from Iraq, Afghanistan and most recently, Haiti.
“It’s amusing. In a way you are treated as a third sex. You are a foreigner and you are a woman and yet, [the men] treat you differently than if you were a woman from their community.”
Fung, who was abducted while reporting in Afghanistan in 2008, agrees.
“You are able to go more freely than the local women,” said Fung, now a national reporter based in Toronto. “I just heard a tale in Kabul about local women journalists being threatened … . They didn’t have the security or as many resources as we do. It’s more perilous for them.”
Ayed and Fung are participating in a panel Thursday night at the CBC in Toronto on what it’s like for female journalists working in danger zones. The panel includes Alison Smith, Connie Watson and Laurie Graham.
Only woman reporter in Afghanistan
Ayed and Fung both say that while plenty of women work as foreign correspondents, it can still be a lonely task.
Mellissa Fung, shown here reporting from Beijing in 2008, was abducted while on assignment in Afghanistan in October of that year. She was released after 28 days. (CBC)
“Early in the Canadian deployment in Afghanistan, I spent three months there,” Ayed recalled. “I felt, and I know, there were times when I was the only woman reporter there.”
Fung recalls spending nights on a cot in the desert in Afghanistan surrounded by male soldiers.
The two women spoke to CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi on Q about some of the hardships of reporting from conflict zones.
“You see a two-minute tale on TV but what you don’t know is that it took 24 hours to get to that place,” Fung said.
The job is as “unglamourous as you can possibly imagine,” Ayed said. “You’re eating out of cans, washing your own socks. We’re doing everything for ourselves.”
A reporter first
Because of the physical strain, a foreign correspondent also has to be physically fit, the reporters said.
“I remember hiking for miles in a flak jacket and carrying a heavy pack,” Fung said.
‘If you feel compelled to help, you can … but don’t place it in front of the camera.’— Mellissa Fung, CBC reporter
“You have to be physically fit when you’re out with the military.”
The two spoke of challenges beyond the physical hardships — including having to deal with their own humanity and a desire to help those in need.
“I have grappled with it, ” Ayed said. “[But] we have a very clear job. Our job is to convey information about what’s going on. We are not aid workers.
Fung says a reporter’s primary job is just that — to report.
“If you feel compelled to help, you can … but don’t place it in front of the camera.”
Both journalists say they’ve met people in their line of work they still keep in touch with and are concerned about.
“When you go out there, you see how people cope,” Ayed said. “The resilience of the people … I can do tales like that until the last day of my life. I find it so compelling.”
