Our book for the October discussions, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, (also available as a downloadable book) provides an interesting comparison to last month's book, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins. When we consider how powerful the combination of the right cultural moment, inherited cultural legacies, and the dedicated efforts of individuals was to create greater political and economic equality for American women in the 1960s, we naturally question whether this success might be possible for women elsewhere in the world.In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell argues, "Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung. We make rules that frustrate achievement. We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And, most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play--and by "we" I mean society--in determining who makes it and who doesn't." In Half the Sky, Kristof and WuDunn issue a passionate call to readers to acknowledge that "in this century, the paramount moral challenge will be the struggle for gender equality around the world" and to learn what they can do to help. They document the enormity of the problems facing women living in poverty and oppression in Africa and Asia, many of them the result of the beliefs their cultures hold about women, focusing on sex trafficking and forced prostitution, gender-based violence such as honor killings and mass rape, and maternal mortality. They honestly explore the complexities of solving these problems. Yet they ask readers to keep in mind that "Women aren't the problem but the solution. The plight of girls is no more a tragedy than an opportunity." With stories of extraordinary people--both the women living in poverty and oppression and those who would like to help them--they illustrate the great potential in empowering women politically and economically.
The title of the book comes from a Chinese proverb: "Women hold up half the sky." Kristof and WuDunn, like Gladwell, believe that we must hold up women so that they can fully inhabit this role. They say, "let us be clear about this up front: We hope to recruit you to join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women's power as economic catalysts." In a final chapter they outline what readers can do--right now--to improve the lives of women, and they offer an appendix of organizations through which we can become involved in supporting women. So while this is a difficult book to read, it is also meant to be a practical and an inspiring one. In our discussions, we will consider how hopeful we feel about the initiatives Kristof and WuDunn describe and share stories of the ways we have become--or would like to become--involved.
We hope you will join the conversation: Tuesday, October 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, October 21, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; or here on the blog.
