9/11 Anniversary: Story of Female First Responders Ignored
Networks are airing a wide array of documentaries on Sunday to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Each documentary tells a different story, but Soledad O’Brien’s CNN special “Beyond Bravery: The Women of 9/11” highlights the remarkable efforts of female first responders-- a story that has been overlooked by news coverage, said O’Brien.
“Everyone has their own story” about what happened on 9/11 but “The Women of 9/11” is one of “a million,” Obrien told the Huffington Post.
“This is just one interesting version of those stories, and I hope that people see another facet of what it was like to go through that experience,” she said.
The documentary, which aired Thursday, Sept. 8 at 11:00 p.m. ET/PT and re-airs Sunday, Sept. 11 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT, chronicles female firefighters, police, EMS workers and journalists who risked their lives on 9/11. The documentary is based on the novel “Women at Ground Zero: Stories of Compassion and Courage,” which profiles some of the heroic women.
The documentary reveals that many of the women feel their efforts on 9/11 were ignored as news coverage spoke of “a brotherhood of rescue workers,” CNN reported.
“I don’t think that there was any task that was performed down there by men that was not performed by women,” Terri Tobin, a deputy inspector of the New York Police Department, told O’Brien. “No, I don’t think that everyone knows that,” she said.
“Little boys and little girls need to know” that women were there on 9/11, said a woman in the documentary, according to CNN.
In the documentary, female firefighters and police officers explain the struggle to gain respect in their male dominated fields. A decade later, there are fewer female firefighters and the police department is 17 percent female.
