Half The Sky

Introduction: The Girl Effect
1. Emancipating 21st Century Slaves
2. Prohibition And Prostitution
3. Learning To Speak Up
4. Rule By Rape
5. The Shame Of Honor
6. Maternal Mortality – One Woman A Minute
7. Why Do Women Die In Childbirth
8. Family Planning And The “God Gulf”
9. Is Islam Misogynistic
10. Investing In Education
11. Microcredit: The Finanical Revolution
12. The Axis Of Equality
13. Grassroots Vs Treetops
14. What You Can Do

Appendix: Organizations Supporting Women
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Additional Info
Starred Review. New York Times columnist Kristof and his wife, WuDunn, a former Times reporter, make a brilliantly argued case for investing in the health and autonomy of women worldwide. More girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century, they write, detailing the rampant gendercide in the developing world, particularly in India and Pakistan. Far from merely making moral appeals, the authors posit that it is impossible for countries to climb out of poverty if only a fraction of women (9% in Pakistan, for example) participate in the labor force. China’s meteoric rise was due to women’s economic empowerment: 80% of the factory workers in the Guangdong province are female; six of the 10 richest self-made women in the world are Chinese. The authors reveal local women to be the most effective change agents: The best role for Americans… isn’t holding the microphone at the front of the rally but writing the checks, an assertion they contradict in their unnecessary profiles of American volunteers finding compensations for the lack of shopping malls and Netflix movies in making a difference abroad. (Sept.)
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