Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
Product Description
From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.
With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devast… More >>
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
5 Comments »
Leave a Comment
laowai said :
February 18, 2010 at 2:12 am
If you want to read about barberic torture of women, this may be for you. I thought it would contain some uplifting and motivating women’s success stories that I could read with my young daughter–a big mistake.
Rating: 1 / 5
M. Jean Bodden said :
February 18, 2010 at 4:01 am
I never received this book – two weeks after I ordered it I got an email saying it was no longer available. I would have thought the response regarding the book not being available would have been a bit more timely!
Rating: 1 / 5
One faithful reader said :
February 18, 2010 at 4:21 am
I was deeply offended by the author’s use and I feel exploitation of the plights of poor girls/women to make political statements and frankly, to make a buck! He spoke out against 4 people in the book: George W Bush, Condalezza Rice, Ronald Reagan and generically, ‘the Pope.’ As a conservative Catholic, I take umbrage! He spewed more hatred against those 4 than against the men who gang rape 6 year old girls or the men who sell their daughters into sexual slavery.
He praised people like George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Ben Affleck. Talk about star struck. Oh, my word!
He writes in remarkably simple terms and used misleading data to back up his claims. I was able to look up data using the 2000 census to disprove many of his claims in less than 20 minutes. If he really wanted to end abuse of girls, he has to tell the truth. The truth is awful enough. He built up his numbers to try to score points and I find that alarming.
I am quite upset by this book and not for the reasons I expected to be, AT ALL! I am upset that I didn’t give the [...] that I paid for the book to CRS instead! What is CRS you may ask? It’s Catholic Relief Services, (page 60 and on page 142). At CRS 93% of the money donated goes to help the poor overseas. Interestingly, it is NOT mentioned in the “What you can do” and “Organizations Supporting Women” sections of the book. Why? Because CRS is a pro-life organization and Nick and his wife are Democrats. This means that by default they can’t support a pro-life agenda. If they really cared about women and girls, they would not politicize it.
Obviously if you are a Bush hater and are still not over it, then by all means buy this book and make Kristof a little richer. However, if you are truly concerned about the way women are treated in this world, then this is NOT the book for you. There has got to be another book out there written by someone who really cares. Anyone?
Rating: 1 / 5
P. Redd said :
February 18, 2010 at 6:20 am
This is a terrible book, my selfrightous English teacher is making my class read. I think the majorty of the people who reviewed this book fall into the selfrightous catagory. This is a review from an insensative man who was forced to read this garbage.
Some of the rape scences are pretty pronographic. I could imagine some people get off reading it. Infact I would say this whole book can be seen as a tour guide for child sex travelers. It tells you exactly where to go and what to expect.
I wouldn’t make a drinking game out of how many times this book mentions AIDS. It’s tempting, because after you read this book you’ll want to drink. You won’t make it threw a single chapter.
This book is not uplifting, most stories end bad, and to be honest I started to hope for the worst for some of the characters. If a story is going to end badly, I want it to end terribly.
The authors of this book come off as pertentious. I disagree with most of their social commentry, and they are quick to bash/promote certian government officals. The is a lot of generalization and man bashing as well. I secretly wish the authors become slaves for a butt raping dungon, and nobody writes a book about it.
Rating: 1 / 5
Michelle B said :
February 18, 2010 at 7:08 am
I had read the reviews about how everyone seemed to LOVE this book. Having done mission work internationally for 8 years now, I thought it would be right up my alley. The thing I didn’t like was that it was slanted severely to the left. Very anti Bush, pro Obama. They talked about funding being cut by Bush for an organization that supported forced abortions in China, but also did good things in Africa for women. I agree with what he did! On the other hand, I liked that they did give credit to the Catholic Church for it’s work around the world. It seems that goes unsaid many times these days. It was more of a travel log, and I actually wished it would have gone deeper into the stories of the women and less into “numbers” that may or may not be accurate. So, I liked it but it wasn’t as good as they said it was on Oprah!
Rating: 3 / 5