"Half the Sky"

I just finished an amazing book called "Half The Sky: turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide". It is written by a husband and wife team, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn who have traveled the world extensively as international journalist and felt the need to call attention to the plight of woman world wide.

I am so passionate about these issues that I can not imagine anyone else might not be so I am trying to gain some perspective on that. For example, I really have no interest in animal rights. Really don't want to know about it, don't really care what I eat how it was processed or how the animals lived on their farms. Organizations like PETA make me roll my eyes more often than wanting to fight for something.

I share that because woman's rights, equality, education and prevention... may be your "PETA". If it is stop reading now. If you are curious about some of the lessons I learned from this book read on. If you are really excited, by it, read it and underline it. I can guarantee you will not be happy sitting at home any more. Think of all of us, faithful readers, headed out on a mission trip together, changing the world as a group of bloggers.

The book shares numerous first hand accounts of women in South East Asia, China, Africa, the Middle East and India all who have suffered greatly just because they are women. They have been mutilated through genital cutting, been doused with acid, sold into prostitution, drugged, raped and beaten. They have been married at age 11, denied educations, lived with medical conditions like fistulas, HIV and others left in fields to be eaten by animals.

The stories in the book often are the stories of hope with happy endings. But there are millions of women whose stories will never be told. Who will never meet a sponsor or a Western Journalist or an aid agency to give them what they need to change their life.

So here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:


"Although volume upon volume of literate is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never heard of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself." Abraham Lincoln

"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adopt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people." George Bernard Shaw

"Social Entrepreneurs are not content to just give a fish or to teach how to fish, they will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry" Bill Drayton


"Women are not dying because of untreatable disease. They are dying because society have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving." Clinical Obstetrics and Gynaecology Journal

"You think we're victims because we cover our hair and wear modest clothing. But we think that Western women who are repressed- because they have to show their bodies- even go through surgery to change their bodies, to please men" Muslim Woman

"If you can capture the youth and change the way they think, you can change the future" Muslim woman


"If we took all the foreign aid that goes to guns and weapons and just took on a quarter of that and put it into education, that would completely transform this country. I beg of you, if we are to overcome terrorism and violence, we need education. That is the only way we can win" Sakena Yacobi, founder of Afgan Aid organization

"The average American spends fifty dollars a year to deworm a dog; in Africa, you can deworm a child for fifty cents"

"Those who harvest the pumpkins are the ones who lack the pot to cook them. In other words, the brightest children are often born into families that lack the means to education them"

"Girls rights are human rights"

and the perfect quote to finish...

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world" Mahatma Gandhi