There are so many feminist books out there that the topic is exhausting to many. I have argued with misogynistic backwards Christians who tell me I'm going to hell for being a woman and daring to speak. I've also argued with angry power-hungry feminists who believe that because men have oppressed women for so long, now women deserve to be the oppressors. The issue has long been exhausted in North America - not that it doesn't continue, but that people don't want to hear about it anymore. Our emotional fatigue in the area of women's rights has created a deadly block to the injustice that inequality has brought most of the world. People simply don't want to hear about "women's issues" anymore - these conjure up images of angry females shouting themselves hoarse about perceived injustices. My friends usually get looks of fear when I start ranting about women's rights - or if they've been around me long enough, they just look bored. Clearly, ranting does not connect well with many people.
Stories, however, change lives. Through stories, we are transported into the shoes of another, living their life for a paragraph, a page, or a chapter. Written by Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, "
Half the Sky" is an adult storybook. Packed full of the women that this Pulitzer Prize-winning couple have met throughout their travels as reporters for the NY Times, the book provides us with tales of humanity. Chapter by chapter, they piece together the world of human interaction between genders with insight and blunt honesty.
Reading this book forces us to meet hundreds of women with different stories - we see their pictures, learn about their childhoods, and watch them struggle through life. Some make it. Others don't. We also hear stories about women from all around the world interacting with each other - helping each other. Despite the fact that all the victim stories are about women, the book paints a sordid picture of humanity as a whole as a limping creature fighting itself. The authors make a clear statement: this is not a book about women's issues, it is a book about human issues and the casualties of these issues - who happen to be women. This is a book for and about men and women.
The beauty of humanity is that our hope also lies in both men and women. Just as we once abolished olden-day slavery, so we can also overcome the barriers that we have created to oppress women into being modern-day slaves. "Half the Sky," despite tackling issues as sad as sex trafficking, female genital mutilation, and mass rape, manages to be a book of hope. Hope is found in the fact that China once was all about foot-binding, and the Americas were once all about slavery. In the same way, perhaps one day we won't associate the Democratic Republic of the Congo with rape as a weapon of war. This too will change - and it will change as people start to take notice, and start to care.
I read this book chronicling the abuses of women in our world at a time when I was working through my own family's history of abuse and oppression. I cannot think of a single woman in my family who has not undergone some form of physical or sexual abuse - such is the nature of our Tamil Hindu culture. I am dealing with many repercussions of this, and some days I have very little hope remaining. And so, I put off starting to read this book in fear of becoming even sadder. Instead, I found relief in this book. I realized that women all over the world have come out of abusive situations and not only survived, but thrived. Women, when given a chance, have the ability to blossom in the most unexpected ways. I am one of these women. My story is echoed by the countless stories in "Half the Sky," and my strength is reflected in the strength of the women who chose to tell their stories too.
This book is good for those who haven't had the chance to talk to a diversity of women struggling with abuse and oppression. It does not replace the importance of personal story-sharing relationships with oppressed women, but it does provide scope for the problem by sheer volume of stories. By emotionally entering into these stories, we can't help but fall in love with the women they're about. And love is what changes things - it creates compassion, which stirs up justice.
Change is coming. Email me or check out
this link if you need some ideas on how to become part of it.
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