History of Feminism

seabeyond

(110,159 posts) Mon Oct 8, 2012, 11:29 AM Oct 2012

Sheryl WuDunn: Empowering Women Comes Down to Economics

Nicholas Kristof fits the bill of swash-buckling journalist—pen and pad in hand, unbridled inquisition in speech—as he presses sex trafficker, negligent cop, and female genital "cutter" alike in the documentary film Half the Sky. But it is his wife and collaborator, Sheryl WuDunn, who provides the economic argument to the film's mission, which asserts that oppressive and exploitative practices aimed at women in developing countries must be eliminated. With financial experience as a Goldman Sachs adviser, a New York Times business manager, and now a managing director of a boutique investment bank, WuDunn explains how the abuse of women hurts everyone's bottom line.

Kristof and WuDunn wrote the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide in 2009, and it has now been adapted into a documentary, airing this Monday and Tuesday night on PBS. Kristof brings actresses Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Gabrielle Union, Diane Lane, America Ferrera, and Olivia Wilde across the world—from a brothel exploiting young girls in India, to a female circumcision shop in Somaliland, to a village in Kenya where the women are in charge—in order to explore the challenges women face and to meet the people working to solve them. WuDunn spoke with U.S. News about why "culture" isn't an excuse, and what Americans can do to help.

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What do you hope the average person watching the documentary in their living room comes away with, and what can they do to get involved?

I do hope they come away with a greater awareness of the challenge, because in order to bring about change, you need a lot of people helping out in little ways. There's a billion different things they can do. Aside from just donating money, they can offer their skills up to some of the NGOs that are involved in this kind of endeavor. We list just a handful of them on our Web site, HalfTheSkyMovement.org, but by no means is it limited. It takes a lot of people helping out even in little ways—we're not asking anybody to give up their careers to go do something. We are really asking them to maybe set aside 10 minutes of their time each week to learn about an issue and try to figure out what they can contribute.

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A lot of the things uncovered by the movie and the book are really sad. Are you optimistic about where things are heading?

There are so many people working in this area for change. I am not in the field working with an NGO, but there are lots of NGOs with people who really are dedicating their lives to this. It's amazing some of the solutions they come up with and the new developments in the solutions, so it is pretty amazing how much innovation there is in this area. So I'm extremely optimistic, more so than other people have ever been in the past on this issue because there really is much more interest in this topic. When it gets to the presidential level, that's just amazing. The outlook is very bright.

Half the Sky is a two-part series airing Monday and Tuesday, October 1 and 2, at 9 p.m. on PBS.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/09/28/sheryl-wudunn-empowering-women-comes-down-to-economics?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews