On the last day of the IV Women and Media Week lectures at Cásper Líbero, three incredible journalists had talked to the students about their experiences as international correspondents, as we published yesterday (Thusday, March 31st) in Thais Monteiro’s article (http://www.hercampus.com/school/casper-libero/women-communicators-risk-iv-woman-and-media-week).
Discover here the speech of these strong women, and some experiences that they passed through.
Vanessa Martina Silva, Laís Modelli, the professor Ester Rizzi and Laura Daudén
Laura Daudén
“Woman can do international covertures.”
Laura made her final course work (in Brazil, called “TCC” here) about the refugees living in Africa’s west coast. In 2009, shespent about 3 months on these zones She told us that, still in her home country, friends and family discouraged her to do this trip. The male chauvinism was very intrinsic and it was common to hear that she was fragile, just because she’s a woman. She said that some situations of risk are doubly dangerous for woman on journalism, and that one may, sometimes, be harassed and even followed by others.
Beyond this, she sympathized a lot with the African women in Saara. “We are very influenced by media and they don’t know about the reality of woman there. Actually, they even have an association for this woman fight, over there.”
Laís Modelli
“It won’t be easy… Don’t believe that feminine sensitivity will open doors to you… but it is possible. Fight!”
Such a strong woman, with a hard opinion, Laís started speaking that the Brazilian society plays hard with its women. Specially the intellectuals ones. She said that a lot of things influenced her to be the woman she is: been raised in a system that made she believe she couldn’t go out her house; being the only woman on a magazine about cars; and living in Mexico, working as a correspondent for big newspapers in Brazil. In 2012, a friend of her, who lived in Mexico invited her to stay at her house. It was a time of changing government and the narcotraffic fight, with a lot of deaths.
There, she started sending news about what was happening to Brazilians newspaper. But it wasn’t easy: the harassment was hard in México, even the subway wagons were separeted for mens and womens. So, she started attending some local feminist groups, with strongs mexican women. Up till today, the feminism haven’t died inside her: she wrote a big report about it and it had a good repercussion at Mexico and Brazil.
Vanessa Martina Silva
“They will always doubt you (…) So, yes, you need to be better than them.”
With a good baggage of stories, Vanessa told how is it to be a black woman journalist, doing international coverage. She has always been fascinated about international journalism, and flowed her journey when travalled to Paraguai, staying at a solidary accommodation. There, she felt ignored for being a woman – she wasn’t taken seriously and needed to do the thing by herself. Vanessa dealt with sexist jokes, but also had been through historic moments – as the elections.