This collection of essays is incredible. Timely, important, and just incredible. Every single one of them caught me in a different way, and I was unable to put the book down unless I was between essays. So many stories that we don’t hear, so many names that we should know, so many words and events that we can learn from. What stuck me the most about this anthology was how deeply personal each essay is, and how much of themselves these women have given to us, the reader, to their country, to the world around them. There is also so much strength and honesty within these pages.

Our Women on the Ground is a collection of essays written by 19 female Arab journalists, with stories from Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt amidst other Middle Eastern and African countries, edited and compiled by Zahra Hankir. The perspectives of these women are in my opinion of utmost importance: they are reporting directly on the ground, from within their own countries and/or on countries around them, providing us with a view that we are not likely to get from the usual western correspondents that our media outlets employ. 

Every single one of these essays struck me, and as I was reading I jotted down some notes here and there, which is why this review is so long… I can’t emphasize enough how inspiring and important these women are.

Nada Bakri’s essay broke my heart. Her absolute loss is palpable through the entire essay. I am so glad that her voice was part of this collection though, as she was a reporter on the ground way before she met her husband Anthony Shadid. It saddens me that she quit journalism after she lost her husband, but I can understand it too. That she wrote this essay is I think a gift to us all, one that must have been incredibly hard for her to write.

Natacha Yazbeck’s words are stuck in my brain and in my heart - a reminder that there is so much that we don’t understand, and refuse to understand, in the west, and also a stark reminder of how much we pick and choose what we want to read about, see, hear. Children are still starving in Yemen. Children are still dying in Yemen.

Nour Malas’ honesty was so striking to me, how honest she is about her profession, her background, her feelings, and especially how easy it is to use one to benefit the other, but also how it is difficult to keep one apart from the other, creating situations that are hard to navigate.

Eman Halal’s essay on misogyny in Egypt was very interesting to me, having spent time travelling around the country in 2004 I always felt like there were eyes on me everywhere, but put it down to just being a tourist. It’s also interesting because in general, (white) western reports tend to group all Muslim women together when discussing oppression/religion/clothing preferences etc, when each country is different, and within each country there may also be many differences. 

Aida Alami’s essay felt nearly personal for me, having grown up in France as an immigrant I was always fully aware of how different immigrant groups were treated, and also aware of my privilege as a white immigrant. France is a difficult country to understand, with a difficult history that is often swept under the flag of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, where no one tries to understand the very distinct issues that first, second, third generation immigrants from Northern African countries often face. I am looking forward to seeing the journalist’s work on her documentary France’s Children!

Shamael Elnoor’s essay on her life as a journalist and experiences navigating Sudan is incredible. Her mission to remain honest and to continue to tell the truth, no matter the dangers that she is exposed to is amazing, and so inspiring. While every single essay in this anthology is inspiring, I think this one really hit home to me how much more work I can do to change the world, especially when there are women such as Shamael Elnoor, Asmaa Al-Ghoul, Heba Shibani, Amira Al-Sharif continue to raise their voices, even when they face unimaginable dangers. I burst into tears at the end of Amira Al-Sharif’s essay: her courage and strength are so admirable, and her drive to shoe the world who Yemeni women really are is so important.

Heba Shibani talks of an issue that I had no idea about (most of us probably don’t): that women in Libya are not able to pass their nationality on to their children if their children were born to a father of a different nationality. The stories of broken families and sadness brought me to tears. I think of all the time I wasn’t able to live in the same country as my mother and siblings, and how painful it was, and the idea of being separated from my own children causes me terrible anxiety, so this really hit home for me. Finally, I loved reading Donna Abu-Nasr’s essay on Saudi Arabia. It is a country I know too little about, and am interested in reading more about it (from a woman’s point of view).

I learnt so much from these women, and am incredibly thankful for their work, their continuous push to report on events, conditions, places, and people that are often not deemed important enough, visible enough (when they are), sometimes in areas of extreme danger (war, bombs, militias, or for just being women in a place that women are just not supposed to be). Their efforts to quash stereotypes, to show truths, and to portray their worlds honestly, with all of the complications, differences, beauties, and darkness is amazing.