Earlier this month, CBS News correspondent Lara Logan was recovering in a U.S. hospital after suffering from a sexual attack and beating while reporting on events in Cairo.
According to CBC news, “Logan was in the city’s Tahrir Square on Friday after Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down when she, her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration.”
CBS described a mob of more than 200 people “whipped into a frenzy.”
According to CBS, Logan was “separated from her crew in the crush of the violent pack”, and suffered “a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating.”
The brutal assault has left many wondering how many other female reporters suffer at the hands of violence, and don’t report it in an effort to maintain an image of a “tough journalist”.
In an industry that continues to be dominated by males, many female reporters feel the need to act stronger to put themselves on a level playing field with their male colleagues.
If they report such incidents of sexual assaults, their editors may refrain from sending them on similar assignments for fear it could happen again. Which it very well could.
So which is more important, job security or personal safety? Is it more important to act tough in this male-dominated profession, or to make people accountable for their actions?
Sadly, the attack on Logan was one of at least 140 others suffered by reporters covering the unrest in Egypt since it began on Jan. 30, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
It goes without saying that as women, female journalists do put themselves at risk when they are reporting on events like the celebration in Tahrir Square. They are in this particular danger specifically because they are women. For some reason, women’s anatomy seems to say that it’s okay to be mistreated.
Since Logan’s experience in Cairo, there have been comments flying around nearly as terrible as the act itself. Some are saying she deserved it, others are saying it’s her own fault.
One reporter fought back by saying Logan has simply been blamed for WWB-working while blond. Evidently, to the less-than-brilliant people who have chosen to comment on this nightmare, light-haired female reporters deserve to be sexually harassed, beaten and belittled even more than their brunette colleagues.
Those who have ridiculed Logan should be ashamed. It’s a sad example of how at a time when women are supposedly “equal”, that we’re not really equal at all. It’s merely an illusion of how things could, and should, be.
