A Woman Journalist in the Combat Zone

When I read about the Pentagon's recent decision to lift its ban on women in combat, I immediately thought about a different sort of woman "warrior"--Lara Logan.

In 2011, Logan, a CBS reporter covering the downfall of former Egyptian President Mubarak, was attacked, beaten, and sexually assaulted by a mob of Egyptian men.  The assault happened in a crowded and chaotic section of Cairo on the night the Mubarak government fell.  Logan was separted from her CBS colleagues and attacked by a large group of frenzied men.  Her ordeal was horrific.  Though she was eventually rescued by a group of Egyptian women and soliders, she later said that she thought she was going to die.

Following the attack on Logan, several major networks considered removing their female reporters from Egypt, a country where harassment of women is commonplace.  Though no female reporters were removed, the incident recalled (and briefly revived) a long-standing debate about whether women journalists belonged in combat and other situations in which, because of their gender, they were at risk.  

Fortunately, several female journalists, including Logan herself, put the question to rest.

Susan Milligan, a political reporter who had covered the war in Iraq, called the idea "insulting."  She added, "If you're pulling all of the women out, you're essentially saying that what happened to her [Logan] is her fault." 

Another journalist, Kim Barker, writing about the incident in the New York Times, argued that women not only belong in combat situations but see wars (and similar situations) in ways that male reporters often do not.

"Without female correspondents in war zones," Barker wrote, "the experiences of women there may only be a rumor.  Female correspondents often tell those stories in the most compelling ways, because abused women are sometimes more comfortable talking to them.  And these stories are at least as important as accounts of battles."

Logan herself has returned to covering wars.  After recovering from the assault, she is now back in the trenches, reporting on the war in Afghanistan and researching a piece for CBS on Al Qaeda in Iraq.

"We believe in these stories," she says. "I'll never stop covering them."

As for her brush with death in Egypt, she notes that she refuses to allow it to define her.