When I first starting doing research in Southeast Asia in the early 1990s, I kept hearing a sardonic "joke" that spoke legions about the position of women in the region. It went something like this:
A Western anthropologist returned from a year of field work in Vietnam in the early 1980s amazed at the transformation of gender roles. In the early 1960s, he said, male domination was so pronounced you could see it in the way families walked to the rice fields: the peasant farmer leading the way, followed by the water buffalo, with the peasant's wife bringing up the rear. Now everything is changed: the woman leads the way, the buffalo goes next, and the farmer is last.
Not so fast, a Vietnamese colleague retorted. You need to keep in mind that there are still a lot of unexploded American bombs in those fields.
This "joke" at once illustrates and encapsulates the central problem addressed in Nicholas D. Kristof's and Sheryl WuDunn's powerful new book: the pervasive oppression of women and girls of all ages throughout the developing world. That Southeast Asia generally and Vietnam specifically have for millennia been considered "good" places for women in relative terms (certainly in comparison to most parts of South Asia and the Middle East) only underscores the profundity of global gender inequity.
Kristof and WuDunn, the first husband-wife team ever to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, self-consciously intended their new book to be both a rigorous exposé regarding gender oppression in the developing world and a passionate call for action against such oppression. They have succeeded on both counts. In 14 brisk chapters, most of them full of harrowing personal narratives describing acts of heinous violence against, brutal exploitation of, or shocking inhumanity to women and girls the world over, the authors render indifference to gender oppression well-nigh impossible.
Moreover, the authors have carefully designed their m.o. for maximum effect. For example, rather than taking on all forms of gender inequity in the developing world, Kristof and WuDunn focus their attention on three particularly egregious forms of oppression, abuse or disregard: "[s]ex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence, including honor killings and mass rape; and maternal mortality," the last of which "still needlessly claims one woman a minute." The documented evidence they provide in making their case - both academic studies and gut-wrenching personal testimonies - is as convincing as it is compelling.
Just as important, the authors shrewdly cast their overall argument in terms of human rights rather than women's rights, knowing full well that it is far easier for many to ignore the latter than the former. Similarly, although they themselves are moralists on the question, they consistently take pains to make the case that gender oppression is economically irrational, costing less-developed countries huge sums in terms of inefficiencies and foregone opportunities.
Finally, while "Half the Sky" - from the Chinese proverb "Women hold up half the sky" - is clearly passionate, it is at the end of the day much more than that. The authors offer a small number of practical and relatively inexpensive recommendations for improving women's and girls' lives. The recommendations range from greater access to micro-finance facilities to stepped-up efforts to educate females in less-developed countries, and from increased funding to eradicate obstetric fistula to the universal provision of iodized salt (which would lessen mental stunting because of chronic iodine deficiencies). Not the jazziest nor trendiest issues, perhaps, but realistic, cost-effective solutions that would bring a lot of bang for the buck.
Given the fact that Kristof and WuDunn privilege action in "Half the Sky," it is not surprising that they also suggest ways in which we can all play roles in combating gender inequity and oppression, whether through contributing financially to exemplary NGOs, through volunteerism, or through political lobbying and letter-writing campaigns.
Such is the pervasiveness of gender oppression around the world, the authors argue, that action on our part is the moral equivalent of the movements to ban the Atlantic slave trade and then slavery itself. That those efforts were ultimately successful gives Kristof and WuDunn - and should give both readers and millions of women and girls in the developing world - at least a margin of hope.
Peter A. Coclanis is director of the Global Research Institute and Albert R. Newsome Professor of History at UNC-Chapel Hill.
