The ex-foreign correspondents for the New York Times are the first married couple to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism for coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square democracy protests.
They both acknowledge that when they began reporting about international affairs in the 1980s, they never imagined writing “Half the Sky: How to Change the World.” At that time, the struggle for equality for women was not on the political agenda, but was considered a marginal issue.
“This book is the outgrowth of our own journey of awakening as we worked together as journalists for The New York Times. The first milestone in that journey came in China,” said Kristof and WiDunn.
The title of the book is derived from a Chinese proverb as quoted by Mao that says: “Women hold up half the sky.” The communist leader brought women into the workforce and abolished child marriage, prostitution and concubinage. This remains the only positive legacy of a brutal and repressive regime.
A year after the Tiananmen Square massacre, Kristof and his wife discovered a study which showed that 39,000 baby girls die each year because parents don’t give them the same medical care that boys receive. The same pattern was found in other countries such as South Asia and the Muslim world. This led Kristof and Wudunn to investigate gender discrimination, forced labor, human trafficking and the sex trade. They estimate that three million women and girls are involved in sexual servitude but this number does not include millions of women under 18 years of age who are intimidated into prostitution.
Sex slavery is actually worsening for several reasons such as: the end of communism, globalization and AIDS. There is a strong demand for young girls whom it is believed are less likely to be infected. Lack of money, however, is the main factor behind the girls’ lack of education and forced labor. One nongovernmental organization (NGO), “American Assistance for Cambodia”, encouraged parents to keep their daughters in school by giving them money. If a girl attends school for a whole month, her family receives $10.
In the early 1990s, the United Nations and the World Bank realized that women and girls represent a potential resource. “Investment in girl’s education may well be the highest return investment available in the developing world,” said Lawrence Summers when he was Chief Economist of the World Bank.
According to the United Nations Development program (UNDP): “Women’s empowerment helps raise economic productivity and reduce infant mortality. It contributes to improved health and nutrition. It increases the chances of education for the next generation.”
This recognition comes amidst widespread brutality inflicted on women. A major study by the World Health Organization acknowledged that in most countries, between 30 percent and 60 percent of women experience physical or sexual violence by a husband or boyfriend.
A new form of violence is the acid attack which first happened in Bangladesh in 1967. Acid attacks are becoming far more common especially in Southeast Asia. Men throw sulfuric acid in the faces of girls and women. The acid melts the skin and sometimes the bones and when it strikes the eyes, it causes blindness.
Rape has also been used to terrorize certain ethnic groups. Mass rapes have been reported in recent conflicts. Mass rape is as effective as killing people because it doesn’t leave corpses that lead to human rights prosecutions. In 2008, the United Nations formally declared rape a “weapon of war”.
“It has probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict,” said Maj. Patrick Cammaert, a former United Nations Force Commander, on the spread of rape as a war tactic.
The amazing success of microfinance is proving that empowering women is an effective way to combat poverty and raise economic productivity. Studies show that poverty is not only caused by low incomes but also by unwise spending by men. When women gain control over spending, less money is devoted to instant gratification and more for education and setting up small businesses.
“Because men now typically control the purse strings, it appears that the poorest families in the world typically spend approximately ten times on a combination of alcohol, prostitutes, candy, sugary drinks, and lavish feasts as they do on educating their children,” said the authors.
It is a proven fact that all the countries and companies that have employed and empowered women have prospered. Moreover, nearly all the people who work in poor countries acknowledge that women are the Third World’s greatest underutilized resource.
“The first thing we learned is that men are often untrainable. So now we work only with women. We pick a woman from Afghanistan, from Mauritania, from Bolivia, from Timbuktu and in six months we train her to be a barefoot engineer working on water supplies or other issues,” said Bunker Roy who manages an India-based aid organization that operates in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
China’s economic takeoff is due to its emancipation of girls. Furthermore, Rwanda, thanks to its policies that empower women, has been dubbed the China of Africa due to its fast-growing economy. Similarly, Bangladesh who has invested heavily in girls’ education and vocational training possesses a thriving garment industry and a dynamic export sector.
The authors also highlight the failure of many programs because foreigners prepared them without consulting the local people. Mary Robinson, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, acknowledged half a century of inefficiency and failures when she said:
“Count up the results of 50 years of human rights mechanisms, 30 years of multibillion dollar development programs and endless high-level rhetoric, and the global impact is quite underwhelming. This is a failure of implementation on a scale which shames us all.”
On the other hand, grass roots projects with local ownership such as Kashf in Pakistan, Grameen in Bangladesh, the CARE project in Burundi, SEWA, the Self Employed Women’s Association in India, are models of efficiency and success.
“Half the Sky: How to Change the World” takes us on a journey through Africa and Asia to meet an amazing number of women who have surmounted insuperable difficulties in order to help women and their daughters. Following these women in their daily lives and witnessing their efforts to change the world around them is truly one of the highlights of this book.
It opens our eyes to women’s global struggle for equal health and education opportunities. And, most of all, this book reminds us that throughout history whenever our values were at stake, leadership always came from ordinary citizens like you and me. Educating girls, empowering women with microfinance and giving them more productive roles helps fight population growth, poverty, disease and nurtures a peaceful and sustainable society. “Half of the Sky: How to Change the World” proves that women are the solution and inspires us to stand up and change the world.
