Half the Sky Feminist Review Essay Example
Midterm: Half the Sky Review
Ryan Carr
University of San Francisco
Rpcarr@dons.usfca.edu
March 11, 2011
Midterm: Half the Sky Review Nicolas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s novel, Half the Sky, is primarily a call for social equality and freedom from oppression for women across the globe. The authors are actively taking the first step of achieving a global feminist movement by informing Westerners of the injustices are that are being done to women worldwide in the name of tradition and culture; they do this through personal stories and by exposing legal or cultural inequalities. As Cynthia Enloe (2004) writes in The Curious Feminist, “if something is accepted as “traditional”- inheritance passing through the male line…it can be swathed in a protective blanket, making it almost immune to bothersome questioning” (p. 2). The hopes from revealing such appalling stories and wrongs that are occurring in the world towards women are that readers will help to fix these issues by not just simply accepting them as cultural traditions. The authors certainly grasp the complexities of such issues and are undoubtedly good representatives for a global feminism movement, with emphasis on women in third world countries. Kristof and WuDunn take an approach to bound all Westerners together in a noble and rational fight for social justice through a global feminist movement; nevertheless some extreme feminists are likely to oppose the book by labeling it neoliberal with a colonialist stance that could potentially characterize non-Western women as victims. Although the authors acknowledge that Westerners across party lines generally have good intentions for women in third world countries, they write, “We sometimes think that Westerners invest too much effort in changing unjust laws and not enough in changing culture, by building schools or assisting grassroots movements.” (Kristof/WuDunn, 2009, p. 66). This concept of attempting to change cultures in third world countries (no
Ryan Carr
University of San Francisco
Rpcarr@dons.usfca.edu
March 11, 2011
Midterm: Half the Sky Review Nicolas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s novel, Half the Sky, is primarily a call for social equality and freedom from oppression for women across the globe. The authors are actively taking the first step of achieving a global feminist movement by informing Westerners of the injustices are that are being done to women worldwide in the name of tradition and culture; they do this through personal stories and by exposing legal or cultural inequalities. As Cynthia Enloe (2004) writes in The Curious Feminist, “if something is accepted as “traditional”- inheritance passing through the male line…it can be swathed in a protective blanket, making it almost immune to bothersome questioning” (p. 2). The hopes from revealing such appalling stories and wrongs that are occurring in the world towards women are that readers will help to fix these issues by not just simply accepting them as cultural traditions. The authors certainly grasp the complexities of such issues and are undoubtedly good representatives for a global feminism movement, with emphasis on women in third world countries. Kristof and WuDunn take an approach to bound all Westerners together in a noble and rational fight for social justice through a global feminist movement; nevertheless some extreme feminists are likely to oppose the book by labeling it neoliberal with a colonialist stance that could potentially characterize non-Western women as victims. Although the authors acknowledge that Westerners across party lines generally have good intentions for women in third world countries, they write, “We sometimes think that Westerners invest too much effort in changing unjust laws and not enough in changing culture, by building schools or assisting grassroots movements.” (Kristof/WuDunn, 2009, p. 66). This concept of attempting to change cultures in third world countries (no