Book Number 1: "Half the Sky"

Book Number 1:

"Half the Sky - Turning Oppression into Opportunity For Women Worldwide"

by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

278 pages (including a 26 page very informative appendix)

A good friend with whom I spent the week between Christmas and New Years, strongly encouraged me to read this book. (Her words to me were: "This book will change your life" In fact while we were at a bookstore together, she actually bought it for me.... so, for better or for worse, I was committed to this book as the first of my 52.

The authors are a married couple who received the Pulitzer Prize in journalism for their coverage of the Tienanmen Square democracy protests. Kristof is an op-ed columnist for the NY Times. I have been following his column on-line for quite a while now which made this book more intriguing to me.

"Half the Sky" comes from a Chinese proverb; "Women hold up half the sky" and, as one can tell from the subtitle, this book revolves around the plight of women in countries in Africa and Asia. The descriptions of the lives of these girls/women whose experiences range from sex trafficking/slavery, organized gang rapes, forced prostitution, maternal mortality, genital mutilation(cutting), and more....are both riveting and agonizing to read.

It would have been impossible for me to get through this book if it weren't for the amazing individual stories of these girls and women. Each chapter tells the story of a girl or woman who in some way challenges the culture in which she lives.

One of the stories that was especially meaningful for me was one about a Rwandan woman named Claudine Mukakarisa, who had been a victim of the 1994 genocide which killed her entire family. She and a sister had survived but were taken captive and repeatedly raped and beaten. Her sister was killed but she survived, became pregnant, delivered her baby at age 13 alone in a parking lot, somehow managed to survive, was taken in by an uncle who also raped her so that she had another baby and was then kicked out by the uncle.

Claudine somehow managed to survive by taking odd jobs, even managing to send her two children to school. At this point a woman from the U.S. who had joined an organization called Women for Women International, was matched up as Claudine's sponsor. Along with a regular exchange of letters, Claudine received $27 a month through the sponsorship and with this was able to start her own small business, along with keeping her children in school, and taking classes herself.

This is just one of the inspirational stories of this book which ends with a chapter giving specific ways that we the readers can help, always focusing on education, and grassroots efforts, acknowledging that ultimately the leadership and responsibility for these initiatives needs to come from the women themselves.

Has this book "changed my life" as my good friend said it would? Well, I can see how it could and I have definitely started to explore some of the websites suggested at the end of the book.... the sponsorship idea especially appeals to me so we shall see what becomes of that.......