About the competition

2022

Image Credit: Pete Muller

ABOUT THE COMPETITION

Across the world, violence and conflict continue to have a devastating effect on people and the planet. Very often rigid gender roles, and especially restrictive ideas about manhood, are centrally implicated in violence and war. But in every place where violence and conflict exists, so too do women and men who are working together to promote more flexible and equitable gender roles that enable non-violence and peace. With this photography competition we aim to explore and document the relationship between masculinities, conflict and peace, and violence and care.

Competition award categories

Documentary/
Photojournalism
Stories

Personal
Expression
Stories

Portraiture
Stories

The jury

Gael Almeida

jahi chikwendiu

Tasha Dougé

Donna Ferrato

Jehan Jillani

Paul Moakley

Pete Muller

Gael Almaida

Gael Almeida is Regional Director for Latin America at the National Geographic Society where she oversees the Society’s storytelling projects and facilitates collaborations between visual artists throughout Latin America. She has over 20 years experience working with governments, academic institutions and civil society organisations.

Jahi Chikwendiu

Jahi Chikwendiu is an award-winning photographer who has worked for the Washington Post since 2001 covering a wide range of stories including the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, genocide in Darfur, the Black maternal health crisis and falling life expectancy due to chronic illness in the United States, victims of Israeli cluster bombs in South Lebanon, and the spread of malaria due to climate change in Mozambique.

Tasha Douge

Tasha Dougé is a Bronx-based, Haitian-infused artist, artivist & cultural vigilante. Her body of work activates conversations around women, advocacy, sex, education, societal “norms,” identity and Black pride. Through conceptual art, teaching, and performance, Dougé devotedly strives to empower and to forge broad understanding of the contributions of Black people, declaring that her “voice is the first tool within my art arsenal.”

She has been featured in The New York Times, Essence and Sugarcane Magazine. She has shown nationally at RISD Museum, The Apollo Theater & Rush Arts Gallery. Internationally, Dougé has shown at the Hygiene Museum in Germany. She is alum of the Laundromat Project’s Create Change Fellowship, The Studio Museum of Harlem’s Museum Education Program, Haiti Cultural Exchange’s Lakou Nou residency, the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute’s Innovative Cultural Advocacy Program and their inaugural Digital Emerging Artist Retreat.

Donna Ferrato

Donna Ferrato is an internationally known documentary photographer. Her gifts for exploration, illumination, and documentation coupled with a commitment to revealing the darker sides of humanity, have made her a giant in the medium. Ferrato first received critical acclaim for her work that captured the horrors of family violence. Her photographs of domestic violence and its aftermath have become landmark essays in the field of documentary photography, challenging social attitudes and putting a spotlight on the devastating impact of everyday violence. Her iconic book, Living with the Enemy, published by Aperture in 1991, is considered the first clear visual journey into the dark heart of domestic abuse.

Her most recent publication Holy, which honours the full dimension of women’s lives, won the 2021 Lucie Foundation Photobook Awards for the independent category.

Jehan Jillani

Jehan Jillani is the Visuals Editor for the Atlantic Monthly. Prior to joining the Atlantic, she was the lead picture and visuals editor at Guardian US. She has also worked at National Geographic, The New Yorker and Magnum Foundation. She is a graduate of Smith College and was born and raised in Islamabad, Pakistan. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Paul Moakley

Paul Moakley is an Editor at Large for Special Projects at TIME. He served as Deputy Director of Photography and Visual Enterprise of TIME from 2010 to 2018. Paul Moakley produces special projects such as the recent “Opioid Diaries” and TIME’s Person of the Year. He was part of the Emmy award winning team for TIME’s interactive documentary Beyond 9/11: Portraits of Resilience. Previously he was senior photo editor at Newsweek and photo editor of PDN (Photo District News).

Pete Muller

Pete Muller is an award-winning photographer, researcher and director whose work focuses on masculinities, conflict and human ecology. Muller spent 15 years living and working in Africa and the Middle East examining the social underpinnings of armed conflicts  across those continents. He has received awards from World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, TIME Magazine, and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (Emmy) and served as the Cyrus Vance Visiting Professor of International Relations at Mount Holyoke College.

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Melissa Torres

VICE-PRESIDENT

Prior to being elected Vice-President, Melissa Torres was the WILPF US International Board Member from 2015 to 2018. Melissa joined WILPF in 2011 when she was selected as a Delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women as part of the WILPF US’ Practicum in Advocacy Programme at the United Nations, which she later led. She holds a PhD in Social Work and is a professor and Global Health Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine and research lead at BCM Anti-Human Trafficking Program. Of Mexican descent and a native of the US/Mexico border, Melissa is mostly concerned with the protection of displaced Latinxs in the Americas. Her work includes training, research, and service provision with the American Red Cross, the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Centre, and refugee resettlement programs in the U.S. Some of her goals as Vice-President are to highlight intersectionality and increase diversity by fostering inclusive spaces for mentorship and leadership. She also contributes to WILPF’s emerging work on the topic of displacement and migration.

Jamila Afghani

VICE-PRESIDENT

Jamila Afghani is the President of WILPF Afghanistan which she started in 2015. She is also an active member and founder of several organisations including the Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organisation (NECDO). Elected in 2018 as South Asia Regional Representative to WILPF’s International Board, WILPF benefits from Jamila’s work experience in education, migration, gender, including gender-based violence and democratic governance in post-conflict and transitional countries.

Sylvie Jacqueline Ndongmo

PRESIDENT

Sylvie Jacqueline NDONGMO is a human rights and peace leader with over 27 years experience including ten within WILPF. She has a multi-disciplinary background with a track record of multiple socio-economic development projects implemented to improve policies, practices and peace-oriented actions. Sylvie is the founder of WILPF Cameroon and was the Section’s president until 2022. She co-coordinated the African Working Group before her election as Africa Representative to WILPF’s International Board in 2018. A teacher by profession and an African Union Trainer in peace support operations, Sylvie has extensive experience advocating for the political and social rights of women in Africa and worldwide.

WILPF Afghanistan

In response to the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and its targeted attacks on civil society members, WILPF Afghanistan issued several statements calling on the international community to stand in solidarity with Afghan people and ensure that their rights be upheld, including access to aid. The Section also published 100 Untold Stories of War and Peace, a compilation of true stories that highlight the effects of war and militarisation on the region. 

IPB Congress Barcelona

WILPF Germany (+Young WILPF network), WILPF Spain and MENA Regional Representative

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Demilitarisation

WILPF uses feminist analysis to argue that militarisation is a counter-productive and ill-conceived response to establishing security in the world. The more society becomes militarised, the more violence and injustice are likely to grow locally and worldwide.

Sixteen states are believed to have supplied weapons to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2020 with the US supplying 74 % of weapons, followed by Russia. Much of this equipment was left behind by the US military and is being used to inflate Taliban’s arsenal. WILPF is calling for better oversight on arms movement, for compensating affected Afghan people and for an end to all militarised systems.

Militarised masculinity

Mobilising men and boys around feminist peace has been one way of deconstructing and redefining masculinities. WILPF shares a feminist analysis on the links between militarism, masculinities, peace and security. We explore opportunities for strengthening activists’ action to build equal partnerships among women and men for gender equality.

WILPF has been working on challenging the prevailing notion of masculinity based on men’s physical and social superiority to, and dominance of, women in Afghanistan. It recognizes that these notions are not representative of all Afghan men, contrary to the publicly prevailing notion.

Feminist peace​

In WILPF’s view, any process towards establishing peace that has not been partly designed by women remains deficient. Beyond bringing perspectives that encapsulate the views of half of the society and unlike the men only designed processes, women’s true and meaningful participation allows the situation to improve.

In Afghanistan, WILPF has been demanding that women occupy the front seats at the negotiating tables. The experience of the past 20 has shown that women’s presence produces more sustainable solutions when they are empowered and enabled to play a role.

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