Muriel V. Roscoe Lecture
Sponsored by the UU直播 Centre for Research and Teaching on Women and the UU直播 Women's Alumnae Association
Sally Armstrong
Editor-at-large (Chatelaine) & Contributing Editor (Maclean's)
"Who in the World is Responsible for What Happened to the Women in Afghanistan?"
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
6:00 p.m.
Leacock Building, Room 232
855 Sherbrooke Street West
(access via McTavish and Dr. Penfield)
The public is welcome. Admission is free.
UU直播 student, Lauryn Oates, will have a display table outside the lecture hall on behalf of the Canadian volunteer group Women for Women Afghanistan. Oates will display photos and a burqa, and hand out postcards for a campaign asking the Canadian government for increased peacekeeping forces around Kabul. Books will feature women's projects in Afghanistan. For more information on Women for Women, see or contact Oates at lauryn.oates [at] mail.mcgill.ca or (514) 346-3151. The UU直播 Bookstore will be selling Sally Armstrong's latest book, Veiled Threat, at 25% off at the event.
Sally Wishart Armstrong, C.M.
It seems an unlikely stretch: phys ed teacher becomes reporter. But Sally Wishart Armstrong has gone from a teaching diploma from Macdonald College and a UU直播 bachelor's degree in physical education in 1966 to being an award-winning writer who tackles the difficult stories. From the plight of child prostitutes in Toronto and Bangladesh, to stories of rape as a war tactic in Bosnia and Rwanda, Armstrong's writing is unflinching in subject. She will receive an honorary doctorate at the Fall 2002 Convocation on October 31.
Armstrong is now most lauded for her work on Afghanistan women under Taliban rule. Her latest book, Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan, chronicles her research over the past five years. She profiles Dr. Sima Samar, now Afghan deputy prime minister, who during the Taliban regime set up illegal schools for girls and supplied medical services for women.
She started her journalism career when an acquaintance asked if she'd like to help out with a new magazine in the '70s, Canadian Living, by writing pieces on fitness. Shortly after, Armstrong was tackling challenging subjects -- her newspaper debut was a front-page article for The Globe and Mail about a Canadian team's successful expedition up Mount Everest.
In 1988, then associate editor of Canadian Living, Armstrong was lured to the magazine Homemaker's as editor. Convinced that "women wanted more meat on the bones of the news," Armstrong offered hard-hitting stories to her readership. She profiled women members of the Canadian Armed Forces during the Persian Gulf War preparing to go overseas; she spent 12- hour days at the Kingston Penitentiary for Women to describe life behind bars; and she started her stories on the women of Afghanistan.
Currently, she is editor-at-large for Chatelaine magazine, and a contributing editor of Maclean's. Last November she was appointed by UNICEF as Special Representative to Afghanistan, which meant checking the situation for women and children in the country while war was being waged against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.
Armstrong has won the Amnesty International Media Award, the YWCA Women of Distinction Award in Communications, and in 1988, she was named a Member of the Order of Canada.
