Half the Sky

I recently read the book Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The title comes from a Chinese proverb: Women hold up half the sky. This book is related to the link I posted several months ago to a NY Times article about the gendercide and discrimination going on in the world against women.

Half the Sky is a hard book to read. The authors talk about the abuse women are subjected to around the world – sold into sexual slavery, honor killings in India, being burned with acid, being denied basic health care, the abortion of female fetuses in China. The authors estimate that there are 60 million women missing from the planet due to this discrimination and genercide. They illustrate the information with stories about real women and girls. The stories about young girls sold as sex slaves were particularly hard to read – the author tried to save a couple of them by buying them. One of the girls made it but the other went back to prostitution because she had been addicted to drugs and the only way she could get more drugs was to return to being a prostitute.

But the book also offers hope for a better future. The authors point out that just by providing iodnized salt to women we can increase the IQ of the next generation of children by a substantial amount. And educating girls has amazing, far reaching benefits – educated girls are more likely to delay marriage and have fewer children. And women and girls who make more money are much more likely to spend the money on better nutrition and basic necessities for the family than men are. Men are more likely to spend money on cigarettes and alcohol even when the children need mosquito netting. There are quite a few stories how providing micro-loans to women improved the lives of families and even whole villages. Although the authors do talk about some charity projects that failed even with the best of intentions.

Besides talking about the discrimination of women the authors also offer ways we can help. One thing they stress is that if people can actually travel to other countries and volunteer their time that can make the biggest difference – both in the lives of the volunteers and the people in the developing countries. But they also discuss different charity organizations. My favorite is http://www.kiva.org – you make a $25 donation and then you can choose a person to receive a micro-loan. The charity provides info on the sex, age, family situation, location in the world, and what the loan will be use for. The recepients repay the loan so you can re-lend the money if you want to.

I highly recommend reading Half the Sky. So much so that if anyone would like to read it I will send you my copy of the book. I only ask that when you are finished with it you send it to the next person who wants to read it (hopefully there will be a next person:) I thought the book could be like the travelling PYO – it could go around the country (or even the world). So if anyone is interested please contact me with your address – if there is more than one person I’ll put a list in the book.