hoodathinkit don't mix badassness resilliance up with trauma those women were literally fighting for their lives .
I would not for one moment suggest that the women are not traumatised or that they are not vulnerable.
My concern is that the Stacey Dooley documentary did not grant the women the respect that they are due.
People can be traumatised, vulnerable and badass. The categories are not mutually exclusive.
Just to be clear, if the women had been celebrated as badass warriors out to kick daesh arse, complete with Ross Kemp style gun porn and lots of fist pumping and high fives it would have brought up different concerns for me.
It is exactly the complex mix of warrior and survivor, toughness and vulnerability, that makes the women human and gives them agency in the eyes of the audience.
Do we really need Stacey to listen to the women's horrifying narratives and then to for Stacey to tell us that it is horrible / heartbreaking / whatever?
Was it really necessary for Stacey to ask a young female soldier "aren't you afraid that you might get killed fighting ISIS?". Is this the sort of question to ask any soldier as they are heading for the frontline?
How is a soldier to respond to this question? Some will say they are doing a job and are looking forward to it. Few will admit to fear even though any normal person feels afraid in such a situation.
the woman replies that she is not afraid to be martyred. What else could she say? She is almost at the frontline where, if you give in to fear you cannot function.
Would it not be more interesting to learn how becoming a soldier and fighting daesh affects the women's self esteem and how it effects their community's perception of them?
It was not so long ago that Yazidi women who were raped or trafficked were shunned by their community and / or subjected to honour killings.
There is an incredibly important story to be told about these women who have survived and witnessed appalling violations are recreating themselves.
Yazidi society has changed dramatically, very recently, in order to accommodate and welcome these brave women back to their society.
This news item is really interesting and left me wanting to know more about how Yazidi women integrate themselves back into their culture after being abused.
www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jul/01/i-was-sold-seven-times-yazidi-women-welcomed-back-into-the-faith
I wanted to know more about the women as complex, multi-faceted people. I wanted to know more about the recent changes in Yazidi culture that allow these women to return home when at one time this would have been unthinkable.
I would have preferred that the documentary was more nuanced and intelligent and less tabloid in its feel.
I think that the subject matter is so shocking and delicate that a serious journalist with significant experience of war traumatised people would have been more appropriate than Dooley, who I understand is a reality TV star who has morphed into someone who has been given the title "investigative journalist" via a non-traditional route.
An earlier poster commented that Dooley is an investigative journalist in the same way that Ross Kemp is an investigative journalist. I think this is correct.
The situation of the Yazidi warrior women is a delicate one. While the women want their stories to be heard, they will have an instinctual anxiety about their stories being portrayed in a manner that depicts them as stereotypical, tragic, disempowered victims.
I am not disputing that they are victims / survivors, they undoubtably are, but they are trying to fight back and are courageous and worthy of admiration.
We saw a lot more footage of Stacey flicking her hair, flashing her perfect teeth and sporting her sparkling clean white clothes (unusual attire for a war zone) than we did of the women themselves.
To be clear, I do not dislike Stacey Dooley, I do not feel that she is necessarily fake or inauthentic, just out of her depth and the wrong person to be reporting on an issue of this seriousness.
I understand that there are Yazidi activists and journalists and I would have very much preferred for the BBC to give the job of presenting the documentary to a Yazidi woman than to Stacey.
I think that the programme would have been much more interesting and much more engaging.