Essay On Half The Sky

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Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn discusses women’s issues around the world, specifically focusing on sex trafficking, violence against women, and female mortality. While this book covers many issues on a global scale, everything relates back to a single central argument: that women are not treated like humans in the “third world.” The authors argue that because women are seen as subhuman in many places, they and their issues are invisible to much of the world. When women are not treated with common humanity, they are subjected to innumerable cruelties. These cruelties towards women that are explored throughout the book are accepted for the same reasons that brutalizing slaves was accepted; the victims are not human and …show more content…

These cultures often accept and allow the brutalization of women through rape and other forms of sexual or domestic violence. Because of these attitudes, laws that are meant to protect women (if there are any) are not enforced adequately and crimes against women are not regarded with appropriate seriousness. In societies that enforce the subordination of women, rape and sexual violence is used as a means of control and even punishment for women who "misbehave." A lack of education domestically and globally results in the erasure of these gendered issues. Because of this, the oppression occurring in "third world" countries are not regarded with the appropriate urgency and remain unsolved. To support the claims in their book, Kristof and WuDunn provide evidence from a wide rage of international sources. They rely on the personal testimonies of a diverse group of women from different part of the world. These women serve as representatives of their cultures and provide a personal account of the oppression their fellow women endure. Kristof and WuDunn also refer to statistics from international women’s and human rights organizations. In addition, they occasionally call upon personal accounts of culture and oppression from various officials from the regions that they are focusing