From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.
With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope.
I asked Erica if she had read this one and she said she replied that she had finished it a few months ago. And then, "I was about to quit my job and go work abroad after reading that." And even though I was only 1/3 of the way through at that point I was like ME TOO. I had just finished telling Aaron that I need to go to back to college and then medical school so I could become a doctor and then move to Sub Saharan Africa in order to serve the poor women there.
So let's just say this book touches a nerve.
As I read snippets to Aaron he said, "WHY are you reading this book? It's awful!" The book itself isn't awful, but the realities it lays at your door are. The truth of the matter is that while I comfortably lay reading under the electric blanket of my clean, modern house with two healthy children there are women all over the world who CAN'T read, who are dying in child birth, being forced into marriages at absurdly young ages, being sold into the sex trade, being burned by their family as a punishment for something they may or may not have done, and worse. There are women suffering from lack of health care while I celebrate the 6th birthday of a son who survived only because I was being monitored twice a week after one of my many routine prenatal check-ups showed there was a problem.
The book frequently paints a very bleak picture but then, mercifully, talks about the people who are doing something about these horrific circumstances. And THAT'S why Erica and I suddenly felt called to move abroad. There are amazing people doing amazing things for the world's neediest and most under served populations. And those people make me feel like I'm not doing enough with my life. I'm probably going to have to add "Build a school in the developing world" to my bucket list.
The last chapter includes four things you can do to make a difference and you better believe as soon as I got my emotions under control I immediately jumped on my computer and did all of them.
Just...amazing.
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