When you pick up Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Cheryl WuDun, you are half afraid of what might be in it. I mean, who wants to read a catalogue of feminine misery so deeply rooted in human culture that it’s impossible to rip out without destroying society? (Not me!) Sometimes the injustices surrounding women’s lives seems so hopeless. Gender issues are too complicated to address in any meaningful way without causing great cultural upheaval right? But I let the happy faces on the cover convince you to open the book and SWOOSH! I was swept into Half the Sky soaring, enlightened, and inspired.
Buddha said, “To live is to suffer.” Suffering comes to all human kind of all genders but in every culture, even my own, women are disproportionately abused, neglected, underrepresented in politics, underpaid in the workplace and subordinated in their own homes and religious communities. Half the Sky tells the stories of women and girls who are challenging their culture. Each woman’s situation is carefully put into context of their customs, culture, laws, and political climate. Some successes are only partial or are in progress but you read with a sense of constant forward motion – step by step – small victory by small victory. You cheer their accomplishments and admire their wit, their strength and their dignity. Women are such resilient, resourceful creatures.
Some stories are hopeful and inspiring. There is the story of a woman crippled from fistulas and nerve damage suffered as a complication of childbirth. Her family could not stand the odor of her feces leaking from her fistula and kept her in a windowless shed outside the home. Lying in the fetal position, she developed contractures and muscle wasting. How did this formerly bright, intelligent and productive woman not go mad? By the time she was brought to a fistula clinic for help, the rectal damage was old and irreparable so she was given an ostomy and physical therapy for her legs. She is thrilled to be mobile again and after spending so much time in the hospital, she has discovered a talent for medicine. She received training and instruction and is now a surgical technician working at the hospital repairing the simpler, repairable fistulas of other women.
Other stories are about the grim determination of empowered former victims. Like the story of the serial rapist, murderer, and crime boss. He terrorized a small village for years and was acquitted over and over by a corrupt and fearful justice system. But there was another court that did convict him. The women of the village, his repeated victims, came together to deliver their sentence publicly as he was set free yet again after a moc-trial. Each woman inflicted a single, wound in return for his repeated rape of them. He died of his collective wounds but not a single woman could be convicted of murder.
What all of the stories have in common is women, working within the harsh reality of their own society, situation, and culturally imposed limitations to find justice, peace, triumph or all of the above. Half the Sky finally bridges the chasm between individual struggles and greater political realities. Surprisingly, it is not dogmatic or preachy either. It’s pragmatic, caring and sensible.
Half the sky will inspire your feminine pride.
And now as my parting gift to you, WanderReaders, Alice Walker reading Sojurner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman.”