Holding Up Half the Sky - The Seminal Moral Challenge of Our Time

Holding Up Half the Sky
local girls from Barrio Esperanza in Granada, Nicaragua go back to school through Kathy Adam's Empowerment International ©2008 trryan

If you do nothing else this week - checkout this past weekend's edition of the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Almost the entire 56 page spread is dedicated to addressing what is surely the seminal moral challenge of our time: the oppression of women worldwide. What anchors this issue is an excerpt from a passionate and powerful new book by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and Times Op Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Pulitzer-prize winning author Sheryl WuDunn, called "Half the Sky - Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide".

From the New York Times Editor: Nicholas Kristof began writing his Times Op Ed column eight years ago, and form the start, he has regularly and incisively called attention to women's issues, especially those in the developing world. Traveling to scores of countries, he has carefully documented and forcefully denounced the crimes and cruelties suffered by women and girls: sex trafficking and slavery; political rape, child marriage; the denial of the freedom to pursue an education or career, or to enter a domestic relationship in which you're not beaten by a man.

________________________________________________________

"The oppression of women worldwide is the human rights cause of our time. And their liberation could help solve many of the world's problems, from poverty to child mortality to terrorism."

________________________________________________________

Granada Family, Nicaragua ©2008 trryan

Kristof says that "the oppression of women worldwide is the human rights cause of our time. And their liberation could help solve many of the world's problems, from poverty to child mortality to terrorism."

That kind of statement should merit everyone's attention and if the excerpt in the Times Magazine is any indication - this book, in stores next month, is a not only must-read but a clarion call to action for all of us.

Female Krung Elder - Ratanakiri Province Hill Tribe - Cambodia ©2009 trryan

Kristof and WuDunn write that if the paramount moral challenge was slavery in the 19th Century and totalitarianism in the 20th Century - in this century the overwhelming moral challenge is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the world: sex trafficking, slavery, acid attacks, no access to medical care and education, bride burning, and mass rape. In most cases these atrocities easily escape the fatally blind and discriminatory arms of the law. "Yet," they write, "if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater."

_________________________________________________________

"Women hold up half the sky" Chinese saying

_________________________________________________________

Empowerment International, Barrio Esperanza, Nicaragua - ©2008 trryan

"'Women hold up half the sky,' in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that's mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it's not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos." The pair add that there is a growing recognition that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. "The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren't the problem; they're the solution."

Masaya Market Portrait, Nicaragua ©2008 trryan

And so why is a travel and nature blogger posting today about women's rights? In 25 years of traveling around the globe it has been much too easy to find places in the world where gender equality is not accepted as a universal right -- and it is heartbreaking at every instance. But more importantly, I am the product of a lifetime of strong and compassionate women who watched over my world and held the sky over my head so that I could grow to the man I am today. It is a debt I owe them - the hopes that all women in the world could enjoy the same empowerment and all children enjoy the same sheltering sky. In my next post - I pay tribute to these women who watch over the world.

I encourage you to read the entire magazine and the other six investigative articles on crimes against women that accompany the Kristof/WuDunn piece in the magazine. And the link to purchase the book, "Half the Sky", is here. The book offers a number of ways that ordinary citizens like you and me can make a difference.

Following Kristof and WuDunn's call for action, later in the week I'll be introducing you to some of the heroes I've met from my travels in Cambodia and Nicaragua who work tirelessly toward the emancipation and empowerment of women in their own villages.

In the meantime, I'll end by sharing with you some of the staggering numbers from The New York Times Magazine piece.

Getting Ready for School

Barrio Esperanza, Nicaragua ©2008 trryan

By The Numbers:

From the August 23, 2009 edition of The New York Times Magazine

-100 Million women and girls are missing around the world because of gender discrimination

-2100 women die in childbirth for every 100,000 live births in Sierra Leone

-5000 women die a year in honor killings, the majority in the Muslim world, according to U.N. estimates

-1 percent of the world's landowners are women

-21 percent of young women surveyed in Ghana reported that their sexual initiation was by rape

-130 Million women around the world have been subjected to genital cutting

-39,000 baby girls died annually in China because parents didn't give the same medical care

-1 bride is burned almost every two hours in India - punishment for an inadequate dowry or to make way for another wife