Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

To start the first half of this chapter, “Microcredit: The Financial Revolution,” the authors share the story of Saima Muhammad, a young woman from Lahore, Pakistan. She joined a women’s solidarity group affiliated with Kashf Foundation, a Pakistani microfinance organization founded by Roshaneh Zafar. She used a small loan to radically improve her life circumstances by generating an income through embroidery. In addition, her prosperity enabled her to continue her daughters’ education.

Microloans are made predominantly to women for several reasons. The first is that women typically suffer more from poverty than men. In addition, studies show that women spend more wisely than men. When men control the purse strings, they spend approximately 20% of the family income on alcohol, cigarettes, candy, sugary drinks, sex workers, and lavish feasts. Women, in contrast, spend more money on nutrition, education, healthcare, and housing, which improves their children’s health and well-being.

Many aid agencies, feminists, and liberals would like to see more women in positions of political power. While the authors don’t argue the point, they caution against assuming that women, because they’re more empathetic than men, will be more peaceful leaders. In fact, they suggest that the data doesn’t support this notion. Women leaders in high-ranking government positions don’t focus on women’s issues, including maternal mortality and human trafficking.

However, the authors note some evidence that “women officeholders do make a difference at the local level, as mayors or school board members, where they often seem more attentive to the needs of women and children” (197). While women are successful political leaders, studies document that both men and women in the community remain less satisfied with women leaders. This bias against women leaders tends to disappear, however, after the community has at least one women leader. Evidence from the US suggests that women’s political participation is key to improving the lives of children.

In the chapter’s second section, “A CARE Package for Goretti,” Kristof and WuDunn focus on Goretti Nyabenda, a 35-year-old woman from rural Burundi. Like many other rural women in a conservative culture, Goretti needed permission from her husband to leave their hut—permission that he often refused to give. She learned from her mother-in-law about CARE, an American aid organization that focuses strictly on women and girls. Participating in a CARE program enabled Goretti to improve her economic well-being and her standing with her husband (who no longer beats her). In addition, she learned how to write, more about family planning, and that “the appropriate behavior for a female doesn’t consist of standing back, that they can contribute at meetings and take firm positions” (201).

In “The Axis of Equality,” the first half of Chapter 12, the authors begin by pointing to how China is a model for improving gender issues in the Global South. They use the story of Zhang Yin to support this assertion. Despite being from a poor family, Zhang Yin became one of China’s richest women. This would have been unheard of even 100 years ago in China, when child marriage, female infanticide, foot-binding, and concubinage were part of the culture.

Chairman Mao and his Communist Party, despite causing millions of deaths from famines and repression in the middle and late 1900s, helped emancipate women. Mao abolished sex work, child marriage, and concubinage and encouraged women to be part of the Communist Party and workforce. While the path toward greater gender equality encountered setbacks—including widespread sexual harassment, the one-child birth control policy, and the return of sex work and concubinage—China demonstrates how “cultural barriers can be overcome relatively swiftly where there is the political will to do so” (206).

The emancipation of women led to an economic boom in China (and other countries in the region). Kristof and WuDunn acknowledge that “implicit in what we’re saying about China is something that sounds shocking to many Americans: Sweatshops have given women a boost” (210). Despite rampant injustices in clothing factories, including dangerous working conditions, sexual harassment, and forced overtime, women prefer these jobs to working in the fields. The manufacturing world prefers to hire women workers. The authors argue that rather than denouncing clothing factories, the Global North should encourage them in the Global South. Currently, most countries in Africa and the Middle East lack manufacturing. Kristof and WuDunn suggest that encouraging these countries to increase their manufacturing capacity, especially the export of clothes and shoes, would create more jobs for women and reduce gender inequality.

Rwanda is emerging as another model of improving gender issues. Since the 1994 genocide, in which nearly a million people were murdered (the majority of whom were men), women have assumed greater economic, social, and political roles, partly out of necessity because more women survived the genocide. In addition, however, the Rwandan government is purposefully creating policies that “empower and promote women—and, perhaps partly as a result, it is one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa” (211).

In the final section of Chapter 12, “Tears over Time Magazine,” the authors share the story of Zainab Salbi, who founded Women for Women International. Kristof and WuDunn emphasize that the organization succeeded by working with people at the grassroots level.

Kristof and WuDunn begin the first half of this chapter, “Grassroots vs. Treetops,” with a stunning description of female genital mutilation (FGM):

Approximately once every ten seconds, a girl somewhere in the world is pinned down. Her legs are pulled apart, and a local woman with no medical training pulls out a knife or razor blade and slices off some or all the girl’s genitals. In most cases, there is no anesthetic (221).

FGM can be extremely dangerous to women, depending on the approach. In Malaysia, for example, the procedure either involves waving the razor blade near or pinpricking the genitals. In contrast, other procedures, including in Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia, involve removing “the clitoris, labia, and all external genitalia” (222). This procedure creates a large, open wound, which is sewn mostly closed with thistle; a process called infibulation. A midwife or husband will remove the thistle upon a woman’s marriage. Cutters learn the procedure mostly from their female relatives. They often don’t use clean blades and struggle to stop the bleeding. The most invasive procedures make childbirth more dangerous too. Girls die or suffer lifelong injuries, but no data quantifies the magnitude.

Campaigns to end FGM since the 1970s have made little progress. Edna Adan, a fierce opponent of FGM, notes how international campaigns rarely reach Somali women. These campaigns led to a backlash in some countries, as tribal groups rallied around the practice because it was part of their culture. Only recently has a group of grassroots activists begun to make a dent in FGM.

In “Girls Helping Girls,” the second half of Chapter 13, the authors focus on Jordan Confino, an American high schooler who started Girls Learn International, which raises money for girls’ education in non-American countries. Several dozen high school chapters are spread throughout the US. Each is paired with a partner class in an under-resourced country where few girls have education opportunities. The organization creates an exchange between two different cultures and helps American high schoolers learn about poverty and gender inequality abroad.

Kristof and WuDunn begin the first half of this chapter, “What Can You Do,” by outlining their desire for the book to spark a movement that fights oppression of women and girls and promotes educational opportunities for girls around the world. People in the Global North must put political pressure on their leaders to create foreign policy changes that help promote gender equality in the Global South. The authors emphasize, however, that leadership must come from women and men in the Global South too.

Women are the Global South’s largest untapped resource. The failure to educate girls and empower women is maintaining (and evening worsening) poverty and dropping the global IQ average. Countries won’t grow their GDPs if they continue to marginalize women.

The authors suggest three initiatives that Congress should pass to begin addressing global gender equality. The first is a $10 billion initiative that would focus on educating girls in Africa and parts of Asia over three years. The aim would be to find the most cost-effective way to support education, which might not mean building schools (as many aid organizations like to do). The second initiative is to sponsor a campaign to iodize salt in under-resourced countries. As the authors repeatedly note, iodine deficiency negatively impacts brain formation and intelligence. The final initiative is to provide $1.6 billion over 12 years to end the incidence of fistula. This campaign can help lay the foundation for addressing global maternal mortality. While these three campaigns won’t end gender inequality, they can show Americans and non-Americans alike that feasible solutions exist.

The authors underscore the importance of donating money and time, with a preference for the latter. Doing so would connect people to something bigger than themselves, which studies show promotes happiness.

In the final section of this chapter, Kristof and WuDunn outline “Four Steps You Can Take in the Next Ten Minutes.” These steps include opening an account with organizations (e.g., Global Giving, Kiva, or Givology) that let users pick a specific project to support; sponsoring a girl or woman in an under-resourced country through organizations like American Jewish World Services or Plan International; signing up for newsletters on gender equality issues to stay abreast of developments; and joining the CARE Action Network, which helps promote civic engagement around poverty and injustice. These steps underscore how we can all help speed the gender empowerment movement so that “women around the world truly hold up half the sky” (254).

Throughout the book, Kristof and WuDunn discuss organizations working to end the oppression of women and girls. In this section, they list many of these organizations and provide a brief description and URL for each. The authors underscore that this compilation is just a starting point for additional research.