Photo: photojournalist Lynsey Addario at work. Photo credit: Michael Goldfarb
Lynsey Addario is a working mother. Her workplace, however, is at times the most dangerous places in the world.
An acclaimed photojournalist, Addario has been awarded a McArthur Genius Grant and a Pulitzer for International Reporting. She’s the type of professional that is not likely to turn down an assignment and that did not change when she was carrying her first child.
“With journalists and photojournalists and people who cover war, there is nothing conventional about our lives,” Addario tells Steve Fast. “So I did continue working. I continued working until I was about seven months pregnant.”
Her decision to work as an expectant mother drew criticism.
“I was going to countries where there were pregnant women all around me,” Addario says. “Why would I receive that criticism when people are not really worried about the women living in those countries all the time and giving birth? So that was an interesting topic for me to embrace and talk about.”
Addario has written about building a career in the profession of war reportage considered by many to be a “boy’s club” in her memoir “It’s What I Do.” Her job has put her in danger multiple times including a headline-making captivity during the Libyan Civil War. Even though it wasn’t her first brush with death, the incident was a turning point for the photojournalist.
“Anyone who has been face to face with death thinks about their future,” Addario says. Her self assessment led her to decide it was time to have a child. “I thought I’m 37 and my husband really wants to have a family and we should do this, together.”
Listen to the interview: Lynsey Addario on The Steve Fast Show
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