Half the Sky

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.