Book Summary/Review – Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide  
Book Summary/Review and Essay questions 

• What relevance does this book have to the class? What topics or terms, are familiar with class readings, videos, class discussions?

• Are there any new facts, ideas, or perspectives you have learned from the book about gender inequality in the global context?

• What are the topics and or issues covered in the book

• What is your overall opinion or critique about the book?

• Share important and meaningful quotations from the book. Why are these quotations important to you?

• The authors used the Hawaiian “Starfish parable” in the book (See chapter 2). What idea, message, perspective, do you think the parable represents. From a feminist perspective, what significance does this parable have in addressing global gender inequality?

 
 
The following are the four main themes in the books: For each theme, identify issues and examples addresses in the book.
 

1. Oppression of Women
2. Universal Benefits of Women’s Empowerment

• The Complexity of Foreign Aid (from the Western Countries)

1. Solutions to addressing the Oppression of Women

 
 
 
 
Essay Questions:
Answer any ONE of these two questions in form of an essay (At least 4 pages excluding the title page).  Use examples and quotations from the book as well as relevant class materials to support your answers.
 
Across the world, women and girls are valued less than men and, therefore, experience far more violence, more neglect, worse health care and fewer opportunities compared to men.  Through story-telling the book attempts to help us see and recognize the variety of ways in which women and girls experience different forms of oppression.  The book is also a call to its readers and the world to act to identify the solutions to women’s oppression, address the challenges of women’s oppression and recognize the benefits of universal women’s empowerment to the society.
Question 1

1. Identify an issue under any of the four themes in the book and explain reasons why you think it needs urgent intervention.
2. Describe how you might use the “starfish parable” (see chapter 2) as a possible approach to addressing the issue you have identified in a)
3. In your opinion, how have the authors used the “starfish parable” to challenge readers like you to refuse to give in to despair and inaction and to be part of the solution in addressing the needs of the marginalized and in making gender inequality a top global priority?

 
Question 2

1. Choose a specific story in any of the chapters in the book that demonstrate women’s oppression and explain ways in which the story illuminates oppression of women and girls.
2. Giving specific examples, explain what efforts have been done to turn the stories of oppression into opportunities for women and girls in specific countries.
3. The book offers perspectives, insights, and optimism of why “You must be the change you wish to see in the world” (Mahatma Gandhi, See chapter 14). As a reader and a student of Gender and Women’s Studies, explain why you think the oppression of women who hold up half the sky is one of the great humanitarian challenges of our time.