Half the Sky

To continue with my theme around international poverty and what does make a difference, I just read one of the most difficult books I have ever read. "Half the Sky" by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn tells the story of perhaps 1 billion women living on our planet today. While I have read unimaginable horrors described in history books that chronicle the stories of slavery or the Holocaust, I always knew that it happened in the past. But as I read this one, I had to confront the reality that this is today and these women were suffering while I read this book. It ended with hope and throughout the book, there were many glimmers of goodness and change. I will try to summarize the bad and the good of these stories and will start with one key theme. While we in the privileged West want to make a difference, it has to be done on their terms, not our terms.

Some of the topics covered include women in slavery, sex trafficking  women suffering unspeakable agony from childbirth, often giving birth when their bodies are too young to be ready. Women routinely beaten, tortured, isolated, and quite frankly treated as property. But there are also many impoverished women who have found ways to become educated, return to their homes and make a difference. The most hopeful aspect of the book is the idea that educated women will change the world.

Unfortunately, many government based aid efforts tend to ignore the fact that allowing half the population of any struggling country to be an untapped resource is dooming that country to fail. And some of the answers are so simple. A South African study found that giving girls a $6 uniform every 18 months increased the chances of them staying in school and decreased the chances of becoming pregnant. According to authors, it is clear that countries that are experiencing the most economic growth are those that have educated girls. While we shudder at what the "one child policy" has done in China, on the flip side Chinese women are far ahead of where they once were. Another thing that was hard to understand but is reality, in China and potentially elsewhere, the sweatshops are good for women. Because they excel at the factory work that has become so prevalent, making clothing and shoes, it provides an entry point for women to make their own money.

I think I can best sum up the book with this quote from the book, "Girls in Poor Countries are particularly undernourished, physically and intellectually. If we educate and feed these girls and give them employment opportunities  the the world as a whole will gain a whole new infusion of human intelligence-and poor countries will garner citizen leaders who are better equipped to address those countries' challenges."

It also gives hope that comes in some unexpected ways. It seems that access to television and watching soap operas did more to change the viewpoints of impoverished Indian women than any education program ever did. These rural women in India seeing their middle class counterpoints having jobs, coming and going freely without asking permission from their husbands empowered them to see that the modern way is to be treated as human.

And one of the easiest solutions is to be sure that all salt is iodized. Low iodine contributes to lower IQs for all newborns and changing that is inexpensive and can make a world of difference.

So as such a book should, it does end with ways we can help. It lists a number of great organizations. One that I am already into a lot is Heifer International. The book's appendix contains many other organizations and ends with the following :

Four steps you can take in the next 10 minutes:

1. Go to Global Giving or Kiva Micro Loans and open an account. Both sites are         People to People and link you directly to individuals overseas.

2. Sponsor a girl or woman through Women for Women International

3. Sign up for e-mail updates on Women's News and find out what is going on that     affects women.

4. Join the CARE Action network and I will add my own 5th one that affects the     LGBT community worldwide which is IGLHRC.