In general, my blog is not a platform for which I share political views, global issues, or controversial articles and ideas that may or may not interest me. It is generally a happy place where I share thoughts and pictures, bits and pieces of life as we live it.
But deep down, whether people talk about issues that affect them or not, I believe we all have things we are deeply passionate about. For me, one of those issues is the mistreatment of girls and women around our globe. To be clear, I'm not talking about cultural differences and misunderstandings (or ignorance for that matter). I'm talking about the horrific way millions of girls and women live every.single.day of their lives. Something that most of us reading this, will never truly comprehend.
About 6 months ago, my sister'n'law Leah, recommended I read the book, "Half the Sky, How to Change the World" by
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Since devouring the book, much of my thoughts have been consumed with the contents of its pages and I believe that everyone, Everyone, should read this book. It's not an easy book to read at times, but the old adage "Education is the key to change" rings true through each of its pages. If we aren't aware of the issues out there, how can we be apart of the movement that causes change?
Today is
International Day of the Girl Child and in honor of that, I would like to share with you a book review of Half the Sky written by Leah. Leah is a brilliant writer and activist in her own right and I am thrilled that she has written a review of this eye opening, inspiring book for us to read here!
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“In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery.
In the twentieth century, it was the battle against totalitarianism. We
believe that in this century the paramount moral challenge will be the
struggle for gender equality around the world.”
― Nicholas D. Kristof, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.
After
reading Half the Sky I am convinced that husband and wife writers
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn are correct: the central struggle of
this century is for greater gender equality. There is something truly
broken in our society, and unfortunately women and girls are bearing the
brunt of this brokenness. Here are a few facts from the book. When you
read them, really think about these numbers:
* In many
communities around the world, girls are seen as less valuable than boys.
As a result, an
estimated 60 million girls are “missing” from various
populations due to the selective abortion of
female fetuses and the
mistreatment and neglect of female children.
* The typical age of
entry into prostitution is 13 to 14 and almost 33% of women got started
in
prostitution through family members or friends.
* 90% of girls and women over the age of three were sexually abused in parts of Liberia during the
civil war.
* In the United States, a woman is abused, usually by her husband or partner, every 15 seconds and
is raped every 90 seconds.
*
One year of female schooling reduces fertility by 10 percent and a
child born to a woman who can
read is 50% more likely to survive past
age 5.
* More than one million children are left motherless every
year due to their mother’s death and these
children are 3 to 10 times
more likely to die within two years.
* Up to 2 million women in
the world are currently living with fistulas. This number grows every
year by up to 50,000 cases.
* Approximately 70 percent
of the world’s poor are women and girls; women earn less than 10% of
the world’s wages but do more than two-thirds of the world’s work.
So
yes. This book is about horrific things. It is about rape. It is about sexual slavery. It is about
honor killings. It is about female genital mutilation and maternal
mortality. It is about economic inequality and the need for more
education. But this book is also so much more. In dealing with these
heavy issues, it is clear that Kristof and WuDunn spent just as much
time on the research as they did thinking about how to present the
information and stories that they found.
The result is
something truly special. Instead of presenting piles of data and
numbers, because, as they say, “even when numbers are persuasive, they
are not galvanizing,” the authors take the time to spotlight the lives
and experiences of women around the world. To be sure, some of these
stories are hard to read. You’ll be introduced to the story of a
young Cambodian, Srey Rath, who went to Thailand to work, was forced
into prostitution and traded to Malaysia, succeeded in escaping, was
imprisoned under Malaysian anti-immigration law and released after a
year only to be sold by the police to a trafficker who sold her on to a
brothel in Thailand. Heavy? Yes. Important? Also yes.
But
it doesn’t stop there. This isn’t just a book about the mistreatment of
women and suffering and everything that is wrong with the world. It is a
story of hope. It is a story of unbelievable courage, of women who are
already working tirelessly to help the women around them.
Remember
Srey Rath? Eventually she escaped from her brothel and built a thriving
retail business that now supports her family. You’ll learn about an
Ethiopian woman with life-threatening maternal injuries that received
help just in time and went on to become a surgeon. You’ll hear about a
Zimbabwean mother of five who earned her doctorate and became an expert
on AIDS. And you’ll also be exposed to important initiatives occurring
all across the globe that actively provide help and assistance to women:
women like Edna Adan, who invested everything she had into building a
hospital in Somaliland – a country with one of the highest maternal and
infant mortality rates in the world. And women like Urmi Basu, who
founded a school to protect and educate girls in a high-risk red light
district in Kolkata, India. These women are the heroes of the book and
they are the heart and soul of Kristof and WuDunn’s message.
In
the Western world many of the problems discussed in this book can seem
so far away. So removed. And they might be. But I challenge you to read
this book and walk away without feeling like we as a society, we as the
privileged, have a responsibility to do more for our sisters that hold
up half the sky.
“The unfortunate reality is that women’s
issues are marginalized, and any case of sex trafficking and mass rape
should no more be seen as women’s issues than slavery was a black issue
or the Holocaust was a Jewish issue. These are all humanitarian
concerns, transcending any one race, gender, or creed.”
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I know in reality that many people may not want to read about such horrors. These kind of global issues are somewhat peripheral, and that's comfortable for many people. But for the sake of the women and girls around our globe that often don't have a voice, please read this book, and allow yourself to be moved to action.
To purchase a copy of this most important book go
HERE! Best $14 you could possibly spend.
ps) To read more of Leah's writing or to follow her around the world, you can read her travel blogs
here and
here.
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