An excerpt from Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's forthcoming book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, is up at the New York Times. It begins:
In the 19th Century, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.
You likely recognize Kristof's name from his dogged reporting on women and trafficking around the world, rape in the Congo, and so many other issues facing poor women throughout the globe. I have to admit that I sometimes find his style repetitive, and therefore not as effective as I believe it could be, but I'm thrilled that he's calling attention to these issues (and has been with such precious column inches). It's cool that he and his partner collaborated to put this book together, as well.
I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but wanted everyone to be aware that's it has launched, along with a couple of interesting contests that feministing readers may want to enter.
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One of my Korean students once told me that they had a saying: "Women hold up half the sky." I wonder if that's where the title is from? Anyhow, I always loved that saying.
Wow, just that quote has got me hooked! I definitely have to read this one.
I'd heard that quote before, recently, too. The NYT article was very good...
A large excerpt from this book can be found in this Sunday's NY Times Magazine, which focuses on women in the developing world.
While there were parts of the NYTimes Magazine article that I loved, Kristof's work often causes me to feel conflicted. I am glad that he notes that women's problems are human rights problems and are central to global issues, but quotes like this make me squirm: 'If you’re reading this article, the phrase “gender discrimination' might conjure thoughts of unequal pay, underfinanced sports teams or unwanted touching from a boss. In the developing world, meanwhile, millions of women and girls are actually enslaved."
Just this morning, a man was found hung (police say likely by himself) in North America after his Playboy Playmate girlfriend's body was found so mutilated that they had to identify her by the serial numbers in her breast implants.
Several problems (women exploiting their bodies for money, surgery to make their bodies unreal and appealing to a ridiculous idea that men have of what women should look like, and a woman being mutilated beyond recognition) suggest that the deep problems of patriarchal oppression do not just count for non-U.S. women.