Super qualified army Col. Ellen Haring — West Point graduate, career officer, doctoral student — was excited when she heard she was close to getting her dream job: supervising female soldiers who work with Afghan women in combat zones for special-operations units. But then she got a call from a staff officer saying…
Sad news: the Marines' attempt to integrate women into their Infantry Officer Training Program has officially failed, at least for the time being — the second of two female Marines that tried to make it through the course quit due to medical reasons late last week.
For the first time, a select group of terrifyingly formidable women have been allowed to enter Marine Infantry Officer Training on an experimental basis. In other words, we're one major step closer to allowing women to fight alongside men on the front lines. But with all the hair pulling and dainty slapping and…
America's military engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq has gone on for a decade and change now, and we've finally gotten far enough down on our checklist to address a pretty glaring oversight: we kindasorta forgot to make woman-specific body armor. Whoopsie-daisy.
When we think of the roles women play in war-ravaged countries, it's easy to think only in terms like "victim" or "caretaker." That's why 23-year-old Elizabeth Herman travels around the world taking photographs and interviewing women about their wartime memories for her "post-conflict project," called "A Women's War"…
As far as the education of your children goes, nothing seems to be more complicated than navigating the social minefield that is the PTA. There's the constant jockeying between the stay-at-home-moms and the working moms, and then there are the bake sales. Oh, the bake sales. Nevermind that they are fraught with peanut…
Earlier this week, Bob Morris, a state representative from Indiana, fired off an explosively stupid open letter to his colleagues in which he called the Girl Scouts, "a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood." It's brought to the surface a conflict that's apparently been simmering for a while, and now it's threatening to…
Sometimes our planet's constant wars can seem as senseless and brutish as a bunch of Neanderthals throwing rocks at each other, and according to one team of scientists, that's what they are: an outgrowth of men's instinct to defend their mates and territories against outsiders. Are you skeptical? Good.
A new report seeks to elucidate what we're risking when we treat terrorism as a men-only institution and ignore the threat that women can pose. So, what are we risking? Death, basically.
Somalia has been devastated by conflict for decades, and now the country is dealing with famine as well. These factors have made living in what was already one of the most dangerous areas on the planet even harsher for women. Recently there's been an increase in various forms of sexual abuse against women, ranging…
Angelina Jolie's directorial debut, in The Land Of Blood And Honey, hits theaters today, and it will be interesting to see what kind of reception it receives: The most famous woman in the world could tell any story she wanted, and this is what she chose. A couple torn asunder by the Bosnian war. A love story, but…
CAMP VIRGINIA, KUWAIT - DECEMBER 18: Specialist Ashley Walter (L) hugs Staff Sergeant Diana Royal from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division after Royal arrived in the last American military convoy to depart Iraq on December 18, 2011 in Camp Virginia, Kuwait. Around 500 troops from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry…
We know that many soldiers are returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder, but they're not the only ones disturbed by what they've seen in war zones. The concept is new, but military veterinarians say they're diagnosing service dogs with PTSD and even developing treatments, even…
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has written a book. Unfortunately, much of that book tries to justify all that lying the Bush administration did to get us into Iraq. Fortunately, she spends some of the book indulging the public's desire to learn about how everyone in the Bush White House was behind closed…
You know how every time Michele Bachmann opens her mouth it's kind of exciting because you never know what's going to come out, but then it's also terrifying because you're worried whatever she says will be taken seriously? Well, brace yourselves because today she's dropped a real doozy: she thinks the people of Iraq…
Next year the British publisher of Anne Frank's diary will release a diary by Helga Weiss, one of the few children from the Czech ghetto of Terezin who survived Auschwitz. Weiss, who grew up to be an internationally known artist, was confronted by Josef Mengele in the camps, but managed to save herself and her mother…
Women, War & Peace from Women, War & Peace on Vimeo.
An audio message from Muammar Qaddafi has appeared on Syrian television, although his physical whereabouts are still unknown. The defiant speech included the lines, "We will fight in every valley, in every street, in every oasis, and every town. We won't surrender again; we are not women; we will keep fighting."
In recent years there have been a handful of female suicide bombers in Iraq and other regions of the world, but the Taliban claims it never used women to carry out suicide attacks — until now. It's believed the Taliban was behind two unrelated attacks this weekend that involved women, and took the lives of more than a…
Wars and revolutions — long-simmering and newly erupted alike — need storytellers, and foreign correspondents remain crucial participants in the process of conveying, interpreting, and contextualizing these cataclysms. More and more, those storytellers are women. Their work carries risks (including the patronizing…
