The Cut on Tuesdays
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On this week’s How I Get It Done podcast episode, Stella Bugbee talks to Rukmini Callimachi, a foreign correspondent who reports on Islamic extremism for the New York Times. She’s also the host of the podcast Caliphate, a devastating series that follows Rukmini as she reports on the realities of life under Isis. She and Stella discussed finding a supportive partner, life on the road, and sexism in the journalism industry.
STELLA: How is being a woman investigative reporter different in terms of the way the people you’re trying to interview interact with you?
RUKMINI: You know, in general I have found that in the field, my gender has actually helped me. These days I’m working mostly in Arab societies where for example, men do not have access to the female gender or if they do, it’s very strained. I can go and sit down with a Yazidi rape victim and as a woman I can sit across from her. I can tell her my mother was a rape victim. This is something that is very personal in our family. As a woman this is something that I have always feared. And I can relate to them through our shared gender. Where I’ve found that my gender has hurt me is, ironically, in New York with Western colleagues. That’s where the difference is felt to me the most.
Click above to listen to the rest of the conversation, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen.