half the sky.

I just finished Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn and it has changed my life. I think everything that you experience whether it be TV, books, movies, people you meet, influence your life in some way or another, but there are certain matters that will endure throughout your thoughts and being for the rest of your life. I've previously talked about how the most exquisite of things are the ones that make your soul want to explode...so it is with the hardest things in life to learn about. This book opened my eyes to all the heartaches of being a woman that I am privileged enough not to have ever even thought of at any point in my life, but millions of women do. How many hours have I spent complaining about my life and how it isn't where I want it to be, while there are women and girls out there, in real time, at this very moment, that are uneducated, worrying about being a child bride, honor killings, being sold into a brothel or worse? I feel so ashamed for wasting so much of my time worrying about myself, when there are much more prevalent issues.



I have seen the nonsensical ideals about what role women should play in society and the effects of unequal pay, but I have never had to experience the horrors of what is described in this book. It's what one would only imagine to be in the most upsetting of films.  That's the biggest problem, isn't it? I had no idea. One of the main issues discussed, is that women need to be educated, they need to know that there is better out there, that they can take care of themselves and their families, and that they have rights, for education, for health, for choice. Women make up half the world, yet are denied much less than half the benefits and beauties that the world has to offer. At the other end of the spectrum, in the United States, here I am. A 26 year old single female, working on a second degree, but I also consider myself uneducated, because I knew nothing and even now know very little of what is happening on the other side of the world. With having so little knowledge, I am a bit overwhelmed about where to even begin to help, but I do know that this is not right, it is not just, and we all, myself included, need to become more educated.