Noah Aniser
Our Bodies, Their Battlefields
War Through the Lives of Women
The article is about the book “OUR BODIES, THEIR BATTLEFIELDS” written by Christina Lamb. The book is about war crimes but not the typical war crimes everybody thinks of. It’s about the war crimes that are always denied to have ever happened. It’s about rape and how it was and still is such a common thing.
The author starts the article with a shocking story of a raped baby. Afterwards the author talks more in depth about what the book is about.
Through her book, Lamb forces us to look and see that rape is common crime, rarely written about. Usually war books deal with topics such as Soldiers, male heroism or strategies used in the war. They never mention women.
While writing her book, lamb travels back in time and researches various examples where women were sexually abused and raped. After talking about past crimes, she focuses and portraits survivors. Most of the women can’t find peace she says.
People just don’t or don’t want to see how much damage rape causes and that it still happens. The author mentions an example of the book that is about a tribunal where a defense lawyer expressed doubt that a woman could have been raped 16 times, because “she had not bathed and smelled.”
Stories like that are what make the book so shocking.
The author ends the article with the conclusion of Lamb’s book itself. Lamb writes, “Every time I walk past a war memorial, I wonder why women’s names aren’t on it.”
I personally think that the article is news because it is about a really important topic and an awesome book. People avoid the past, but Lamb’s book and that article forces us to look and see what we did and still do. Usually book reviews are boring and not really informative, but that article gives me all the necessary information and reaches the goal of making people think about rape as a war crime and a big issue.
The author does a good job by using quotes of victims and Lamb. It makes the article seem not just like a book review. It seems that the topic and the book actually matter to him.
The most important information can be picked up in the beginning which is good and by using the headline of the book he gets the attention of readers that might have already heard about the book but have never actually read it.
Overall, it is a great article that deserves attention.