Half of Heaven: How women around the world are fighting for a better future

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Author Sheryl WuDunn at a press conference in Montreal (2012)

Half of Heaven: How Women Worldwide Are Fighting for a Better Future is a non-fiction book by Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn . The English-language edition was published in September 2009 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. under the title Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide ; the German translation one year later at CH Beck Verlag .

The book covers topics such as forced prostitution , gang rape , forced marriage and maternal mortality in India, Pakistan, Southeast Asia and Africa. The authors draw comparisons, for example, with the Atlantic slave trade , in which fewer people were shipped than women and girls are nowadays forced into prostitution by force; or that the genderzide of girls in the last 50 years has claimed more lives than all the wars of the 20th century combined among the male population. The authors alternate data and facts from scientific reports with the description of individual fates, since it is the individual fates "that make people act". In addition, they also describe possible solutions and successful aid organizations: In particular, education and microcredits would give women empowerment , i.e. the self-confidence and financial independence to enforce their rights.

200,000 copies of the English hardcover edition were sold in the first ten months of its publication. A website, Half The Sky Movement , serves as an information platform on the topics of the book and the aid organizations described, as well as the authors and follow-up products with the topics of the book. In October 2012, the non-commercial US television broadcaster Public Broadcasting Service broadcast a four-hour television documentary by Kristof and WuDunn with the same title, which presented the individual fates of women from different parts of the world, combined with background information and statistics. Celebrities like Hillary Clinton , George Clooney and Meg Ryan took part.

Expenses (selection)

  • Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-3072-6714-6 .
  • Half of Heaven: How women around the world are fighting for a better future. paperback, translated from English by Karl-Heinz Siber, with a foreword by Margot Käßmann , Federal Agency for Political Education, Bonn 2010, ISBN 978-3-8389-0109-1 .

Literature and individual references

  • Irshad Manji Changing Lives The New York Times September 17, 2009, accessed February 9, 2013
  1. ↑ Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn: Saving the World's Women: The Women's Crusade , The New York Times August 17, 2009, accessed January 25, 2013
  2. ↑ Oliver Junge: Bride burning every two hours Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung September 8, 2010, accessed on January 25, 2013
  3. ↑ Simone Hamm: Female suffering worldwide Deutschlandfunk February 9, 2011, accessed on February 9, 2013
  4. ↑ a b Germaine Greer: Half the Sky: How the other half suffer The Guardian July 31, 2010 “while it is individual stories that move people to act.” , Accessed January 25, 2013
  5. ^ Ed Bark: Using Fame to Shine a Spotlight on the Suffering The New York Times September 30, 2012, accessed February 9, 2013

Web links

  • Half the Sky Movement Book , accessed February 9, 2013