Half the Sky- Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

#79. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide- Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

The title of this book comes from the oft-ignored Chinese saying about how women hold up half the sky. Sadly, the sky is sagging in many places, because the treatment of women and girls around the world is fairly deplorable. It's not without hope, but the statistics and anecdotes in this book are pretty shocking. Bride burning. Acid attacks. Female genital cutting. Forced prostitution. Rape. Physical abuse. Denying girls food, medicine, education, simply because they're female. Aborting and abandoning female babies. Check out some of these quotes:

More girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century. p14

Surveys suggest that about one-third of all women worldwide face beatings in the home. Women aged fifteen through forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined. p74

During World War I, more American women died in childbirth than American men died in war. p126

These statistics stun me. I'm sitting in front of my computer, staring at the screen, just shocked and wondering why there's not more outrage about this kind of stuff, and why, if women speak up, we're looked at as hairy-legged bra-burners. Why aren't we allowed to express outrage and demand answers? (Just so you know, less than one percent of US foreign aid is targeted to programs that aid women and girls, as page twelve points out. Food for thought, although that tastes kind of bitter, too.)

When anesthesia was developed, it was for many decades routinely withheld from women giving birth, since women were "supposed" to suffer. p127

Of course.

This is really a shocking, eye-opening book. Kristof and WuDunn detail the plight of many women around the world, women who face such monumental struggles. It just floors me that in this day and age, women are still so very written off in so many ways, in every single culture. There are some solutions though, or at least a start. Kristof and WuDunn offer up ideas, strategies, and charities and aid groups who are working diligently to make a difference in so many places, on so many issues. Fistula hospitals. Microcredit. Organizations who help stop human trafficking. Here's a sample:

http://www.prajwalaindia.org

http://www.healafrica.org

http://www.worldwidefistulafund.org

http://www.34millionfriends.org

http://www.kiva.org

http://www.girlslearninternational.org

Such an important book. It's not easy to read, but it's one that needs to be read. Read, and think, and help.

Women might just have something to contribute to civilization other than their vaginas." -Christopher Buckley, Florence of Arabia