Tracing Present Scars to Past Traumas
By MATT MCCANN
Time, pitilessly lurching forward, has a way of altering memory.
And a memory can be a powerful thing. Tweaked, reinterpreted, repackaged — in a war-ravaged country, it’s a political tool, to be sold back to people seeking stability, seeking answers. Or, it could be a means to empowerment, a way to define one’s course and actions across a lifetime.
Elizabeth D. Herman in her series “A Woman’s War,” examines memory’s relationship to the present, but also gives a voice to those often pigeonholed in the story of war: women. Ms. Herman understood that the world was messier, that women had roles that went beyond either caregiver or victim.
“I went into this project knowing that women as victims of rape was one version of history that was talked about a lot,” said Ms. Herman, 23. “It was kind of the only version of women in the war that was put forth.”
