In advance of International Women’s Day, please join the Women & Politics Institute for a virtual conversation with WPI Executive Director Betsy Fischer Martin and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of the new book, The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice. She will share her on-the-ground reporting about an extraordinary group of women who took on the Islamic State and won.

Publisher’s Weekly calls the book a “riveting” and “fascinating portrait” of the all-female Kurdish militia force who helped drive ISIS from northern Syria. War correspondent/writer Sebastian Junger describes Lemmon as “one of America’s premier storytellers” noting she “risked her life to research perhaps the most important subject of our times: the empowerment of women and the establishment of a truly egalitarian society. Documenting the extraordinary struggles of a small group of women battling ISIS, Lemmon has shown us unequivocally what female leadership can do for a society. It is breathtaking to behold.”

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Ashley’s War and The Dressmaker of Khair Khana and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She regularly appears on CNN, PBS, MSNBC, and NPR, and she has spoken on national security topics at the Aspen Security Forum, Clinton Global Initiative, and TED. A graduate of Harvard Business School, she serves on the board of Mercy Corps and is a member of the Bretton Woods Committee.

Betsy Fischer Martin is an Emmy-winning journalist and former TV news executive. Currently, she is the Executive Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University and a faculty member in the School of Public Affairs, where she teaches courses on campaigns and elections. During her earlier career in television news, she spent 23 years at NBC News serving as the longtime Executive Producer of Meet the Press with Tim Russert and as the Managing Editor of NBC News Political Programming.

A native of New Orleans, Fischer Martin did her undergraduate and graduate work at American University in Washington, DC. She is a cum laude graduate of their School of Public Affairs and earned a master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from the AU School of Communication.

"Women on Wednesdays": Gayle Tzemach Lemmon - "The Daughters of Kobani"