"Half the sky"

So when I was revising the last paper, Anne suggested me to read this book, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDuun, but I could not borrow the book from the library so I watched the DVD instead (both are available at Canaday.) For those who are interested in gender equity and feminism movement, this is definitely something worth watching. It is a touching documentary. A passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation - the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. It was painful to watch. A vivid picture of women in different parts of the world as victims of culture, tradition, poverty, religion and most importantly mankind. It communicates its points with heartbreaking stories of women who have gone through tremendous cruelty just because they are simply women. It captures the mesmerizing eyes of hopelessness of these women. But there are also the heroes and the heroines who are engaging in changes, the women who passionately fight for their own rights and others who dedicate their life to offer a helping hand to the oppressed women. I was struck to realize that, all the heroes and the heroines that are changing the world are actually ordinary people living an ordinary life just like me and many other people. I was mesmerized by the question “What can I do??” because the documentary is so touching and motivating…

It is also attractive in the way the authors use assumptions and theories that applies to many aspects of life and that are recognized by many people to point out the paradoxes in gender equity problems. They use familiar things to call attention to important issues. One of my favorite quotes in the film goes “Social psychologists have learned a great deal about happiness in recent years, and one of the surprises is that the things we believe will make us happy won’t.” ~