women in colorful headscarves sit in a forest clearing, India
women in colorful headscarves sit in a forest clearing, India
Read Women’s Stories, From India to Iran
Tomorrow is International Women’s Day. In celebration, we are surfacing compelling gender equality stories supported by the Pulitzer Center that are worth your time this weekend.
In India, fisherwomen play a crucial yet unrecognized role in the fishing industry, facing systemic barriers stemming from patriarchy, casteism, and economic inequality. "Breaking the Nets"—a five-part multimedia series by grantees Monica Jha, Sriram Vittalamurthy, and Shamsheer Yousaf for The Wire—highlights their stories and their fight for recognition, rights, and economic independence.
In A Move, grantee Elahe Esmaili returns to her hometown of Mashhad, Iran, and challenges the pressures of wearing a hijab within her own family, drawing inspiration from Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom movement. Through personal resistance rooted in love, the short documentary, released by The New York Times, explores the power of coexistence and the fight for women’s autonomy in the face of repression.
Many women in the Democratic Republic of Congo are navigating the realities of war, whether as fighters, survivors of violence, or activists striving for peace. From young recruits like Thérèse Ndarubyariye, who take up arms alongside men, to women like Henriette Mbitse, who provide care and solidarity to survivors, “Women’s Agency in the DRC War” profiles the experiences and resilience of women seeking a better future. “My strength comes from the fact that I am also a woman,” says Mbitse.
Gender equality stories supported by the Pulitzer Center are creating an impact. In September 2024, Brazil’s Ministry of Health launched a program to reduce Black maternal mortality after grantee Cláudia Collucci's reporting for Folha de S.Paulo, which exposed maternal health injustices and prompted a public event on the issue.
Students are also responding to this reporting. Read the 2023 winning poem in our annual Fighting Words Poetry Contest by high school student Mariana Bartolo Ortiz, with lines from the Center-supported webinar “Memory and Protest of Femicide in Juárez.” Our 2025 contest guidelines, resources, and suggested stories are live now, and the contest will open for submissions on March 15.
like the braid on my abuela’s back
and beads on rosary strand,
interlinked we are
rain
dust
stars.
Best,
Image
SarahSwansignature
Impact
Artist Shauntrice Martin, a recipient of a Pulitzer Center 1619 Impact Grant in 2024, is leading a team in building a Black Arts District in Louisville, Kentucky. Through a four-month program that Martin calls “the first step” toward the Black Arts District, Martin connected educators, students, and community members to local Black history. In a reflection on the Pulitzer Center website, Martin writes:
“Our mission was to provide Louisville students with comprehensive arts education programming that fostered creativity, critical thinking, and an understanding of racial justice. The four-month arts intensive completed as a part of our 1619 Impact Grant was the first step for what we envision: a Black Arts District in the West End that functions as more than just a physical space, but will be the cultural movement our city deserves.”
Photo of the Week
Indigenous Mah Meri woodcarver Samri Abdul Rahman is keeping tradition alive with his wood carving. From the story “Changes May Ease Burdens of European Deforestation Regulation on Small Palm Farms, but Not the Confusion.” Image by James Whitlow Delano. Malaysia.
“The story offered the chance to offer a uniquely nuanced examination on palm oil production. Over the decades, I had mostly encountered massive oil palm plantations, where corporations often expropriate Indigenous lands, clear-cutting the rainforest, because the Indigenous inhabitants mostly lack official title to their land. This story was different. I was able to document the lives of empowered smallholder farmers whose lives have been lifted up by this cash crop—a completely different cause and effect due to oil palm than I’d encountered before.”
—James Whitlow Delano
This message first appeared in the March 7, 2025, edition of the Pulitzer Center's weekly newsletter.Subscribe today.
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