The FPA’s Must Reads (September 5-12)

The Afghan Girls Who Live as Boys
By Jenny Nordberg
The Atlantic

In Afghanistan, some of the strictest gender segregation rules in the world are being overcome by the girls known as bacha posh, “dressed like a boy.” Nordberg details the lives of these children who, in a society where freedom is a concept limited significantly based on gender, have begun their lives living, dressing and presenting as boys to gain access to opportunities unheard of for girls.

“Son, Men Don’t Get Raped”
By Nathaniel Penn
GQ

The prevalence of sexual assault in the military and the military’s treatment of it has made headlines. In this article, Penn delves into the stories of men who have been victims of sexual assault in the military, how cases go unreported and ignored by leadership, and what’s being done to put a stop to it.

Returning the gaze: everyone’s a war reporter in an always-connected world
By Ian Steadman
The New Statesman

From the Syrian civil war to the crisis in Ukraine, today’s wars have unleashed a flurry of data, bringing the conflict closer than ever before. Steadman investigates what makes the war reporter of today’s world, beginning with one of the biggest names in citizen journalism out there — Eliot Higgins.

Dancers and Diplomats: New York City Ballet in Moscow, October 1962
By Rachel Marcy
The Appendix

In the 1950s, the U.S. and the USSR used art and culture as a sort of “cultural proxy war” to promote the virtues of their respective ideologies. Dancers from the New York City Ballet toured part of the Eastern bloc, right on the cusp of the Cuban missile crisis — a story Marcy retells in this longread.

Two Undocumented Kids Made It To Connecticut, But That’s Only The Beginning
By Nicolás Medina Mora
Buzzfeed

A recent influx of undocumented children from Central America has restarted the debate over immigration. Not as much has been said about what life is like after getting to the U.S. — an experience this article explores through the lens of two kids in Connecticut.

Blogs

Cultural Cleansing with Chinese Characteristics? by Gary Sands
Why Russia Intervenes by Mark Kramer
The Russia-Ukraine conflict: lessons for Europeans by Dominik P. Jankowski and Col. Dr. Tomasz K. Kowalik
Russia Unhinged? Why the World’s Leaders Must Take a Stand by W.A. Schmidt
2014 NATO Summit: ‘Crucial’ to Say the Least by Daniel Donovan