Zafrania

Description

In this photograph, taken during the US invasion of Iraq, women mourn family members who were killed when a missile landed on their home; the missile had launched accidentally from an ammunition collection point under US military control. Alford explains there are “advantages and disadvantages to being a woman in the field. The advantages are that we tend to appear less threatening to men and may raise fewer suspicions at times. We also get better access to other women. We’re confusing—we act and dress like men but we’re not. In some cultures, strange men are not allowed to be in the same room with local women, while we tend to get treated as what I call ‘the third sex’ and are invited into both women’s and men’s spaces.”