Avery C. Stallman
W. Scott Olsen
English 110
11 February 2025
Life of the Lens
How strongly does gender influence the lives of everyday people? For one certain woman it was the gift and curse in the field of photojournalism dominated by men.
The memoir It’s What I Do by Lynsey Addario from 2015 provides a new insight on how gender became her double-edged sword to bear as an American photojournalist that specialized in conflict. The fight between her work and family life becomes less of a balancing act and more of a pendulum swing as she learns how the two contrasting aspects of life fit together. The connection of her gender, the vast sea of culture that each additional flight takes her on, and the stereotypes that arrive externally and internally, shape this book into a wonder of just how strong one must be to survive among guns, starvation, and the worst of it all, men.
Near death experiences are usually a one-time ride, but one woman chose to dive headfirst into it. Her gender allowing her to capture photos never seen before. On the other hand, she endured sexism not just from the murderous men with their large guns, but also from her own coworkers. Obstacles such as additive danger and becoming more of a target are known factors for aspiring women in male-dominated fields, but what if that field also included landmines and bullets shooting through the air?
Gender is not a solid foundation; it flows and shifts within societies. It is less a set term and more a way of being. Individuals use gender to put a name to the face of who they are internally. Such freedom is important for all to have, and a strong sense of self is the building block to finding true self.
Many cultures recognize a third, fourth, or fifth gender which shows us the beauty of a word that moves with the tide. Lynsey shifts between beings as she travels, at some points even identifying herself as a third unknown sex as she walks the tightrope of gender and culture, two themes so heavily intertwined throughout history. Culture is more than a word or theme; culture is the history, art, society, and lives of people in the community. This allows individuals to connect and share their thoughts and voices within a group. It dictates how we interact and chooses how we hold our values inside a community.
Now the word stereotype can put a sour taste in your mouth. The initial definition is judging one’s cover before they have read the book or assuming who someone is just by previously known ideas and assumptions. It is when you do not look at someone’s individuality and instead look at their external features to describe their entirety as a being. Push a little deeper and there’s a second definition. To stereotype is less about the one being judged and more about the one stereotyping. To ignore the internal state of someone and instead decide to look externally shows how much a person respects the ideology of looking deeper than the surface level, and frankly it’s a lot harder to only see the external and ignore absolutely everything else about them, dumbing them down into one simple narrative. We see these three themes heavily throughout Lynsey’s writing but what does it tell us when Lynsey is the one who stereotypes? You would assume it’s about other people, but we watch as she stereotypes herself instead.
Inside of Ajdabiya, Libya, in March of 2011 a revolution is raging with war and death. Lynsey was with three other journalists, all men, to capture the story and get their images to the front page. She writes that as the revolution continued to grow more dangerous many other journalists were pulling out and her group decided to stay and though Lynsey wanted to leave, she didn’t say anything. “My desire to pull back to safety felt like a terrible weakness. My colleagues would never have accused me of being wimpy or unprofessional; I was the one who was all too aware of being the only woman in the car” (8). Lynsey knew her colleagues would never stereotype her, and yet she silences herself and writes about how she was the only one who cared that she was the only woman. Lynsey is actively stereotyping herself and worrying that she is a weak woman who wants to fall back when she internally knows that the others would not take it in such a way. Her gender becomes stereotyped, and she creates it, showing that even a conflict photojournalist can have internal battles. No one is immune to stereotypes and that’s a hard lesson to learn.
We see Lynsey feel stereotyped and insecure again when Lynsey is with Paul, who is her boyfriend that she will later marry and start a family with. Paul is royalty and has experienced lavish life due to his heritage. His acquaintances and friends from his background are also very polished and shiny so when Lynsey shows up at a birthday party, hosted by Paul’s group, wearing jeans and a stylish top while the other women surrounding the area are wearing beautiful designer outfits, she feels her stomach drop. All the women at the party are wearing gowns and Lynsey feels completely out of place among them. “I was still a woman, and I still cared what I looked like; no matter what I accomplished with my career nothing eliminates those stinging insecurities you develop as a child or teen” (160). In this you can see that her gender is a large part of her identity that she holds dear. The gender and her stereotypes are deeply rooted just as her insecurities are. She feels targeted at this party full of expensive attire and feels as though everyone is judging her. Like in the last quote, the stereotypes and gender intertwine and in this quote insecurities which come with being a girl show her feeling like a stereotype once more.
Her job is mentioned during the birthday party, and it leads her to look at the other women and notice something interesting. “I was dreading the disapproving glances by these women who had never worked a day in their lives” (159-160). Lynsey works hard and sacrifices a lot to be a photojournalist because it’s her passion and these women around her have never worked a day in their lives and yet Lynsey is still wanting their approval. Her culture is very different from these lavish non-working women, and she feels that she cannot bear the disapproving looks they will give her. In these quotes we see her having a mental battle with herself as gender, culture, and stereotypes often mix and affect each other because they are such strong themes of life. Gender allows one to know themselves, culture allows connection, and stereotypes are often created due to ignorance.
We see stereotypes come into play once more in a different aspect of her life when she takes a new assignment for her photojournalism with her next destination being Afghanistan. Lynsey at this point has never been to a hostile country and she is debating on how to pull off such a difficult trip. As she contemplates these thoughts she begins to wonder about the lives of the people there. “Were Afghan women miserable living under a burqa and under the Taliban? Or did we just assume they were miserable because our lives are so different” (41). This quote from the book sparks strong questions about if we are understanding the culture of these Afghan women. Lynsey finds her purpose in the work of disproving stereotypes which contrasts to how strict she is on herself. Once again highlighting how everyone struggles with being too hard on themselves. A unique and smart perspective on her part as it allows the reader to feel more connected to her story, because yes, it’s stuffed full of death and humanity’s worst features, but it is also full of those little moments that show us how we are all living this life together. She decides to go to Afghanistan to not just be taught about these women but see their lives and communicate with them firsthand to learn their perspective. In western society it is told that the women of Afghanistan are miserable and forced to cover themselves, but Lynsey wants to try something new. Her gender allows her to transcend stereotypes put out by other people and look past them to realize that only somebody who has talked to them and heard their perspective can understand how these Afghanistan women feel.
Lynsey has the internal want to fight stereotypes, but it takes a few more journeys before she finds that puzzle piece of her true self and realizes this is why she is a photojournalist. As she is in Pakistan documenting the aftereffects of 9/11 Lynsey realizes that she wants to show the American people a different perspective of the individuals living in Pakistan because so far, they had only been shown the negatives. “I became fascinated by the notion of dispelling stereotypes or misconceptions through photographs” (72). She allows stereotypes to come internally, yet she is willing to reject external stereotypes just to get the right story for her work. This shows the duality that comes with stereotypes as we learn that they come more from within than not. Just as we find out at the party, there are deeply rooted insecurities that happen from growing up that can never be erased.
While she’s in Afghanistan working, she starts to notice something strange that happens. Lynsey is not treated like the Afghanistan women, and she’s not treated like the Afghanistan men, she feels different. Lynsey is documenting Afghanistan when she is invited inside a home and shares a meal with all the men at the table which is something Afghanistan women are not allowed to do. “As a foreign journalist I was exempt from all the norms and rules that applied to the women here. I was androgynous, a third, unidentified sex” (50). The aspects of gender and culture are heavily involved with each other. She was allowed more freedom because she was foreign and, with this, she was able to experience things others have not. The Afghanistan men do not know how to treat this foreign woman who transcends the rules of Afghanistan women and so Lynsey becomes androgynous as she states.
There is a distinct culture of Afghanistan where the women cover up and do not leave the house and they do not work or become educated. Such a different culture than the western one Lynsey is used to. Still, she wants to respect their culture while she is there, so she wears the appropriate clothes and is taught how to act as a woman in Afghanistan. In the quietness of the evening while she’s at a hotel Lynsey begins to wonder what the outside world is doing because she feels like Afghanistan is frozen in time. She reflects on how nice it has been to not put great effort into her appearance as a woman and realizes something about herself. “It was refreshing to submerge myself in an unfamiliar perspective and ideology, to assimilate in both mind and dress. In fact, during the last few days, as I walked through the streets and into people’s homes, I had started to welcome the cover and anonymity of the thick cloth I wore draped over my head and around my shoulders” (53). Such a strong theme of culture in this quote as Lynsey respects Afghanistan and wears clothing that was previously seen by her as possibly oppressive and the most interesting thing happens, she starts to enjoy it. Her gender is seen in this quote as she welcomes the cover and anonymity of the clothing because in western society you put a lot of work into your appearance as a woman.
In Afghanistan she manages to converse with lots of different women and asks them about the clothing that they wear because she wants to learn the truth on if they feel oppressed. Lynsey meets Anisa who used to run a major office in Kabul. Anisa then brings her to a middle-class neighborhood where she meets four women who had been secretly hired to help teach skills like knitting and sewing. While talking with these women Lynsey realizes that they were unlike other women she had previously met. These women were educated and frustrated about not being allowed to do as much as they used to. They explain that the least of their worries is what they wear and instead they just want to be allowed to work again. “To them, the burka was a superficial barrier, a physical means of cloaking the body, not the mind” (58). There’s the truth Lynsey has been looking for during her journalism through Afghanistan. Her gender allows her to meet with these women and converse with them, the respect she shows for the culture helps her understand it, and the ability to fight stereotypes that have been stated as factual time and time again allows her to look deeper than what others have said and from it, we can learn that it is not seen as oppressive. Lynsey has the unique ability to ignore stereotypes of others and yet she is unable to fight the ones she puts on herself while being scared for her life or while feeling ostracized at an expensive party. Lynsey has many internal battles throughout her story, and there’s nothing wrong with those mental battles. How comforting is it that a conflict photojournalist who has near-death experiences daily still has bad days. Those days remind us that nobody’s perfect and no matter how successful we become, we all struggle. It reminds us that we all have humanity inside us, and she may be different, but she is still a human and struggles like everyone else.
Her gender may allow her to view her work in a different light, but it also gives her very different experiences than the men around her. As her work continues, she begins to photograph Pakistan after the time of September 11th when terrorism hit the United States of America. She is in the streets photographing protests when the men notice her and in the mania of the protest, she becomes a target to these sexually frustrated and restricted men. “I didn’t want my gender to determine whether or not I could cover breaking news, so I continued photographing, ignoring the sweeping of hands on my butt, the occasional grab” (73). She is being groped by dozens of men on the streets, and she cannot find her colleagues anywhere but she does not want to stop because she does not want her gender to define her work and so she must endure. Then she comes across her colleagues and the difference between how they are treated and her is immense. “I found my male colleagues, lounging, all of them smitten with their afternoon’s work, checking the backs of their digital cameras for their prizewinning photographs, completely oblivious to what I had gone through to compose even one frame” (74). Because she was a woman in Pakistan working, she was singled out and groped multiple times and her colleagues, which were all men, were completely oblivious and did not notice because with their gender why would they notice since it is not something they need to worry about.
We see her gender and culture mix again when her work takes her to Libya in March of 2011, and this is the most significant time when her gender is singled out among her coworkers as they are all kidnapped. They are heading to an unknown destination with their captors when one begins to hold Lynsey gently and speak in soft tone to her. After a while her colleague Tyler asks for some fresh air, and she does not understand why he’s suddenly anxious after staying calm throughout the kidnapping this entire time. “I would later learn that Saleh, the soldier who kept telling me I would die as he caressed my cheeks, had told Tyler repeatedly that he was going to “cut his pretty head off,” and Tyler had been nauseated” (226). The same soldier who had in a sick but loving way caressed Lynsey’s cheek, in the same breath, had told her colleague that he was going to cut his head off. Such drastically different emotions portrayed at the same time from this man. Comfort to the woman and terrorization to the man. Though the soldier was whispering softly to Lynsey that she was going to die the delivery of the message is more significant than the words. After this Lynsey is groped quite a few times by multiple men as they are brought to a new location and when they get there they are put into a cell with some water and their bathroom is a bottle in the corner. “I was too distressed to eat, and despite my thirst, too terrified of needing to use the restroom to drink” (227). All her colleagues take turns going to the bathroom inside of the bottle and as Lynsey watches them, she becomes jealous. “The men took turns urinating into the bottle in the corner, and I longed for a funnel, or a penis” (228). She would rather be dehydrated than take the chance of needing to use the restroom because it will leave her vulnerable and uncovered. And of course, she does not have the easy access like the men do with their genitals when it comes to urinating. Her colleagues do not seem to notice she is not having ease like they are. Later in the evening while everyone is asleep something disturbs the quiet.
A young man opened the cell door, looked at the four of us asleep, and grabbed my ankle. He started dragging me toward the door … I squirmed back, pressing myself against Anthony, in search of protection. The man gave up and left. Eventually I closed my eyes. I breathed slowly and took in the silence of our cell. Steve, Tyler, and Anthony were all asleep (229).
This man makes his way into the cell where they are all being held, looks at all four of them and picks the woman. This is deliberate and by choice. Nobody else wakes up as the struggle continues but eventually Lynsey manages to get free, then she looks around at her coworkers and realizes none of them woke up. She is fighting for her life as the only woman and the men did not wake up. Once again showing how her gender as a woman gives her experiences that the men do not have.
From enduring multiple men groping her butt because she was simply doing her job, to never letting anyone’s stereotypes stop her from finding the truth, Lynsey shows her endurance as a woman. It may change her experiences as a conflict photojournalist, but she does not allow it to stop her. She can get insight on the truth behind Afghanistan women because she is a woman, something all her colleagues could not do. Lynsey ignores stereotypes others made about women and with her gender uncovers the truth of a culture so unlike the western one she grew up in. She is held and comforted by the same man who talks about how excited he is to cut her coworker’s head off and Lynsey longs to be able to pee into a bottle while being kidnapped. She fights for her life screaming and kicking while all the men around her continue to sleep peacefully. She continues through it all and does not let any setbacks stop her. Culture, gender, and stereotypes are vastly seen throughout her writing because they are significant to her work as a photojournalist. She invites us to reject stereotypes and shows us exactly how to do it. Her work as a woman may be a different experience but she does not let it stop her, and though it puts her in harm’s way it also leads her to the truth of a story. What is a story if not the telling of a culture? She finds her meaning in uncovering the different aspects of cultures because once you respect it you can learn from it. As Lynsey says, it is who she is. It’s what she does.
Works Cited
Addario, Lynsey. It’s What I Do. Penguin 2015.