Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

Probably the most important book I will read this year. This is a call to action couched in a series of narratives that are passionate, disturbing, engrossing, and ultimately inspiring. It is difficult to read at times, though the gruesome details about rape, honor killings, prostitution, maternal morbidity and other violence done to women do serve the higher purpose of explaining the importance of these issues.

Sometimes the authors seem to have simplified things in order to present clear cases for one solution or another, and I do take issue with their promotion of industrialization as a solution to women's poverty, which needs some rethinking in the wake of Bangladesh's deadly sweatshop fire in 2012. They also -- for perfectly valid show more reasons --concentrate on the developing world, to the extent of minimizing any similar problems in the U.S. and Europe (which admittedly are not of the same scale, and are generally not condoned by an entire nation's culture or government). Their overall argument, however, is so compelling that I'm going to go set up an account on Kiva so I can channel my new knowledge into loans to people who need them. show less

this one is tough to review.

While the stories were uplifting at times and even inspiring, you have to try to get through a lot of the violence and horrific stories to get there.

Of course, that is part of the book ~ the shock of some of the terrible things that people do to women and the bigger problem of how this affects the women and society as a whole. And, these stories need to be told and they need to be heard ~ and they need to be brought to the light ~ PEOPLE MUST KNOW THIS HAPPENS!!!

But, I'm not sure if the shine of the hope and inspiration was enough for me (again ~ just FOR ME) to see through the dark and violence of all the true stories. It's one of the few books that has given me nightmares.

Read it, enjoy it, but maybe only show more a chapter at a time. show less

“…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. More girls are killed in this routine ‘gendercide’ in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the twentieth century.”

Sex trafficking, forced prostitution, honor killings, rape and not giving girls the same medical attention and treatments as boys are given are all reasons for the above. “Every year, at least another 2 million girls worldwide disappear because of gender discrimination.” And barely any of this makes the ’news’. Horrific. The firsthand accounts of the cruelty and abuse suffered by women made my stomach turn. And ache. Reading show more about a world in which a girl's virginity is more important than her life, was just unfathomable. But it happens. And is happening.

“…far more women and girls are shipped into brothels each year in the early twenty-first century than African slaves were shipped into slave plantations each year in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries…”

"Women hold up half the sky." - Chinese proverb show less

Half the Sky : Turning Oppression into opportunity for Women Worldwide – Kristof/Wudunn
4 stars

“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.”

This is the authors’ stated opinion in the introduction of their meticulously researched book, Half the Sky. They go on to propose workable solutions to three appalling abuses facing women worldwide: sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence and maternal mortality. Their solutions include girl’s education and micro finance which they show to have a proven show more track record.

This book was both easy and difficult to read. Statistics and policy discussions are interspersed with inspiring personal stories of women who overcome unimaginable difficulties to achieve for themselves and others. The stories of abuse and deprivation were enough to keep me awake at night and more than once had me in tears.

Although the authors make no secret of their liberal political views, they make a point of giving credit to any interventions that have a provable success rate. They give examples of more than one instance where their own beliefs were changed by careful consideration of the facts. For example: “Conservatives who have presumed that the key to preventing AIDS is abstinence-only education, and liberals who have focused on distribution of condoms, should both note that the intervention that has tested most cost-effective in Africa is neither.” And in a later discussion, "Religious conservatives…. have also saved lives in vast numbers by underwriting and operating clinics in some of the neediest parts of Africa and Asia…….All told some 25% of AIDS care worldwide is provided by church related groups.” They emphasize the need for controlled studies of any intervention to measure effectiveness without regard for personal beliefs or political correctness.

“If there is to be a successful movement on behalf of women in poor countries, it will have to bridge the God Gulf. Secular bleeding hearts and religious bleeding hearts will have to forge a common cause. That’s what happened two centuries ago in the abolitionist movement, when liberal deists and conservative evangelicals joined forces to overthrow slavery. And it’s the only way to muster the political will to get the now-invisible women onto the international agenda.”


They compare today’s battle with the abolitionist movement in the 19th century. They point out that Britain began the first onslaught to the institution of slavery by banning the slave trade in 1807 and becoming the first country to abolish slavery in 1833. They make a point of noting that taking this moral high road cost Great Britain both in lives and economic growth. Change doesn’t come without a price. The book ends with specific suggestions for macro government support and resources for ways in which individuals can make contributions to the cause. show less

How could I not have known about this book until just recently? I don’t know when I’ve read a book that has made more of an impact on me. Admittedly, I read mainly fiction, but read of this book on the Kiva.org web site. I reserved it at the library and no sooner than reading a couple of chapters, I knew I had to purchase this book.
Probably the most impressive thing about this book is although it brings out very graphically the horrendously oppressive conditions that hundreds of millions of women and girls suffer with on a daily basis, it also has many relatively simple and doable solutions.
The first part of the book is filled with actually individual cases the authors found in their travels throughout many third world countries. show more Heart-wrenching stories of very young girls sold by their families, forced into prostitution and not having a shred of hope for a better life.
You’ll read things in this book that will make you tremendously angry, perhaps bring some tears but the optimistic solution is never too far behind.
We in developed countries take for granted that childbirth is relatively safe in this day and age but that is not the case in many many countries. Mothers and infants dying are everyday occurances in many places and millions of women who are going through their whole lives, through many births and have never, ever seen a doctor. Very young girls suffering horrendous injuries from unattending births.
The end of the book has a chapter called “What You Can Do” and “Four Steps You Can Take in the Next Ten Minutes”. To say this book is an eye-opener, inspirational, a call-to-arms is simply not strong enough. It needs to be read by everyone, period. show less

Rape, maternal mortality, sex trafficking, genital cutting, honor killings . . . this is not an easy book to read. The authors open the reader's eyes to the abysmal treatment of women in countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia through personal stories of women who've been horribly abused but manage to come through it all and help others in the process. Even though many of the stories are uplifting, I still was really down the whole time I was reading this. It just all seems so hopeless in a lot of ways. The authors spend a lot of time analyzing what kind of charities are actually working and what aren't (a lot of them aren't!) and they end the book by giving you concrete ideas to help.

I think their most important idea is that to show more make a difference you have to be there. They are big proponents of traveling abroad to aid charities, especially during college which I agree is a fantastic idea. Also, the charities that seem to make the most difference are those started and run by local women with financing help from westerners.

This is a very hard book to read, but I think it's an important one. show less

In Half the Sky Pulitzer Prize winning journalists Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn share a heartbreaking study of oppression of women around the world. It begins with a long section on the sex trafficking of women, sharing personal stories of many victims. Girls may be told that they are about to go to earn money selling fruit in a city, and then they are kidnapped, beaten and raped until they submit to prostitution. Some are born into brothels. Many who escape or are rescued from their situation return "willingly" because they know no other way to make a living and they are stigmatized in their community for their past occupation. And many return because they crave the drugs that their pimps have forced upon them to keep them show more complacent and needy. The book also explores lack of freedom to get educated, honor killings, genital mutilation, and maternal mortality.

Half the Sky was a difficult read because it's hard not to be dragged down by the pain these women have experienced - and that millions worldwide are still experiencing. This is a powerful and important book, and I believe that everyone even remotely interested in the topic should either read this book or watch the documentary that is based on it. show less