Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide *ePub
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation—the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. From the bestselling authors of Tightrope, two of our most fiercely moral voices With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope. They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS. Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty. Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen. Read more
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Why Must Read Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide?
Amazon isn't allowing my teenager to post yet, so I'm posting his review here. I read this book as a 13-year-old guy, and I thought having a teenager perspective would be helpful. Half the Sky is a book that completely awakened me. It’s a book talking about all of the women’s rights that are being violated all around the world, but especially in Africa. The authors - a married couple - travels the world to write this book and inform the reader that this a big problem that the world needs to change. The couple goes from Africa to Iran and listens to countless and powerful stories about women being violated. Two of the main topics that this couple tends to focus on is the lack of education of women and when women are sexually abused or trafficked. It is very sad to hear all of these stories, but it was so amazing when this couple helps the women start a better life. One key take-away I got from this book was how clueless we can be sometimes. In the book, they said that there is probably a brothel where you live. If you think about this, it’s crazy to think of the terrible things happening to people right underneath your eyes. Thinking about this makes me more aware of my surroundings and being more observant. I also realized that Africa’s culture can be way different than American culture and sometimes there are things we don’t completely understand from our “common sense.” For example, some African parents sometimes will ask their daughter to marry her rapist because her being unmarried could be worse for her and the family. It’s hard for me to fully understand what it’s like to be in someone else’s, especially people living in such extreme poverty. One thing I thought was a great idea was to help women start a business of their own. Any women who wanted to make money with a business received a $65 grant to start. Later they could turn that money into more money and have a job and business of their own. I think this is a brilliant idea. In general, this book is very eye-opening for me, making me realize the terrible things that teenage girls are facing all around the world. I would recommend this book for teens and older. For some readers, some of the material could be disturbing. For example, a group of women stabbed their rapist many times who was about to be set free in a rigged trial. And there are some hard-to-read details of the violence that girls experience. But these issues should not go unknown.
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