Essay 1: Half the Sky: A Book with Words that Speaks of Actions

Introductory note:

My essay entitled “Half the Sky: A Book with Words that Speaks of Actions” reflects an opinion I have had for a few years. It is my experience that there are two kinds of people in this world: those who say that they will act and never do, and those who stand up and take initiative. It is the later type of people those who manage to make a difference. As I was reading the introduction to  Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Woman Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn I thought that the book was simply going to be a summary of the problem the world has with the idea to awaken the reader’s mind and make them want to do something about it. After reading the first chapter of the book I understood what Half the Sky is not only about that: it is about showing the problem and proposing way any single individual can help fix it. In fact, the book’s website has a long list of foundations where one can volunteer or give economic aid. That is where the idea of “… A Book with Words that Speaks of Actions” came from.

My thesis statement, that Kristof and WuDunn are not feminists, also comes from part of my personal believes. I believe that although politics are an important part of every movement that intends to change the world, yet it must not be the single, most important thing. The important thing is for the movement to never forget its goals and to have the ability to adapt and evolve with time. Feminism has failed to do so and we can see it because it is a movement that instead of being inspiring and a day-to-day discussion, is something we rarely hear of. Kristof and WuDunn do not call themselves feminist because there might be more drawbacks to doing so. If feminism would have managed to evolve and reanalyze its goals then Kristof and WuDunn might have been interested in affiliating.

Half the Sky: A Book with Words that Speaks of Actions.

Co-authors, journalists, and married couple, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn address one of the world’s biggest problems in their book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Woman Worldwide. In the introduction of their book they explain how their lives as journalists took them to China where they became aware of the suffering and discrimination against woman in most developing countries. They briefly explain what the world has done in the past decades to resolve this issue and how it has not been enough. Throughout the introduction they use the story of a Cambodian woman named Srey Rath, who was abducted and prostituted against her will, as an example of the thousands of cases of abuse against woman around the world. Although Kristof and WuDunn argue in favor of human rights, especially woman’s rights, they do not identify themselves as feminists: in fact, they approach the issue as a global problem of human rights and not as a fight for gender equality. Chloe Anyal, a feminist, journalist criticizes in her article “You are not a feminist, but… what?” those who live by feminist ideas and fight for the feminist cause yet refuse to identify themselves as part of the feminist movement.

Kristof and WuDunn explain what gave them the idea of writing a book on discrimination against women. A few years ago they were assigned a journalist job in China and covered the Tiananmen massacre, an event that, although unrelated to their book Half the Sky, still dealt with human rights. It was in China where they became aware of the magnitude of the problem:

Then, the following year, we came across an obscure but meticulous demographic study that outlined a human rights violation that had claimed tens of thousands more lives. This study found that thirty-nine thousand baby girls die annually in China because parents don’t give them the same medical care and attention that boys receive. (Kristof and WuDunn xiv)

The fact that Chinese parents take better care of their sons than what they do of their daughters should not be surprising; like many other developing countries, women are still seen as inferior to men. What is surprising is that that discrimination has silently claimed so many lives. None of those parents loved their daughters any less than their sons, yet their neglecting to give them medical care for apparently minor things caused the death of their girls. The injustice Chinese parents showed towards their children was what opens the authors’ eyes to what would unravel as a journey through the world and uncover many more unjust realities.

 Later on in the introduction, Kristof and WuDunn explain why discrimination against women is a bigger issue than simply not having the right to an education or having the right to choose. Discrimination against woman is a violation to our human rights that not only denigrates the individual, but in many cases also claims their lives:

The global statistics on the abuse of girls are numbing. It appears that more girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than man were killed in all the battles of the twentieth century. More girls are in this routine ‘genocide’ in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the twentieth century. (Kristof and WuDunn xvii)

What Kristof and WuDunn are trying to make their readers realize is that we study the extent of human evil in the holocaust, we reproach politicians that send nations in to war, we prosecute – sometimes to death – any man that kills one of his fellows; yet we somehow overlook the fact that female discrimination has claimed so many human lives.

Angyal claims in her article that women in American society now live their lives as a product of those who fought before them: “We are heirs to a legacy built by women’s libbers who came before us and the suffragettes who came before them” (Angyal par.2). Part of Angyal’s point is that woman nowadays should identify themselves as feminists and continue fighting for gender equality because, as she points out, a big part of the fight has been fought but there is still much work for the new generations to do.

Based on Angyal’s arguments, one could say that Kristof and WuDunn are feminist; they fight for women’s rights in developing countries with the hope of creating a better world. However, Angyal defines feminism as more than simply fighting for a cause:

Feminism demands a complete overhaul of how we think, we behave, how we talk, where we work, what media we consume. How we vote, and how we raise our families. For woman and for men, feminism is a dramatic shift away from the way things have always been. That’s why it’s so thrilling – and so threatening. (Angyal par.5)

By no means do Kristof and WuDunn, international journalists, decide what media they consume according to whether or not the media network supports gender equality. They also do not change their behavior, the way they talk to people, or the way they work, for gender equality.  On the other hand, Kristof and WuDunn are constantly fighting and thinking about gender discrimination, and they make a living from it. Nevertheless, their fight is about human equality and making the world a better place, not about being part of a dying political movement.

Another reason why Kristof and WuDunn might not consider themselves feminists is pointed out in Angyal’s essay as she describes the present connotations that being a feminist can have: “In the popular imagination, feminists are still the ugly, angry extremists who killed chivalry and who seek not gender equality, but world domination. Calling yourself a feminist carries with it the risk of having any one of these labels slapped on your forehead” (Angyal par.4). It may well be that Kristof and WuDunn do not call themselves feminist as part of a marketing strategy. It may also be that if they would call Half the Sky a feminist book, they could face a loss of some of their credibility. It is sad that feminism, a movement so important in our last century of history, has so many negative connotations.

Kristof and WuDunn see their fight as a fight against those who see women as inferior in any way. They choose to fight specifically for women because they have found that it is one of the biggest problems the world still faces: “Rath’s saga offers a glimpse of the brutality inflicted routinely on woman and girls in much of the world, a malignancy that is slowly gaining recognition as one of the paramount human right problems of the century” (Kristof and WuDunn xiii). In the end, women rights are just another subdivision of human rights. Kristof and WuDunn do not fight because the women are women; they fight because women are nothing else but human.

Kristof and WuDunn do not call themselves feminists simply because they are not, and, although Angyal might disagree with this the core of the matter is that Kristof and WuDunn are no longer simple journalists that report news. Kristof and WuDunn are activists that believe in a better world and are doing what they can in order to achieve it. Whether you are a feminist or not is ultimately irrelevant to the feminist cause. What the feminist’s should be worrying about is not whether people see themselves as part of the movement or not, but as to how much people’s lives have change because of feminist ideas and on all the work there is still left to do in the rest of the world.

Words are important. Writing is important because it communicates people and shows how the world is still far from being perfect. Articles and intellectual discussions promote the solutions to our problems.  Yet things cannot stay in text; the world does not change with letters – It changes with action. At the end of the day, it is those people who are not afraid to act that make the difference.

Actions will forever speak more than words.

Work Cited

Angyal, Chloe. “You’re Not a Feminist, But. . . What?” Guardian.co.uk. 7 Apr. 2010. Web. 10 Jan. 2011.

Kristof, Nicholas D., and Sheryl WuDunn. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. New York: Vintage, 2010. Print