Today, Heather and I are discussing Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl Wudunn (see the official site for more information). This is the second half of the interview, so it won’t make much sense unless you pop on over to Heather’s first.
Eva: To answer your last question, I read the book awhile ago, so I don’t remember a lot of the profiles. But I did love the one of the woman who has lived in Senegal for the past couple decades, and has developed a program that actually helps end female genital mutilation by involving the whole village. That filled me a lot of hope. 
What would you say the weakest part of the book was?
Heather: Let’s see, the weakest part… this is hard because I don’t think there was anything particularly weak about the book as a whole. I mean, they did provide a ton of options for what we as “outsiders” can do to improve some of these horrific situations for women around the world, and there was a lot of talk about what governments and individuals in those areas can do… so I feel like they covered their bases there. I felt like there were several tangible options I had for helping, and I also felt like there was enough discussion on the larger issues going on for most of these women, why our money won’t just magically fix everything and more needs to be done by people actually living these situations. I guess, for me, the weakest part would be what I already sort of mentioned, that I didn’t personally learn much from the book. Which is fine because I am pretty knowledgeable about women’s issues around the globe, but I just would have liked a little something extra that I hadn’t already heard about or thought about before.
What would you say the weakest part was? And was there anything in the book that particularly stuck out to you as new information, or even old information presented in a new and thought-provoking way?
Eva: I suppose the only weak part might be the lack of sophistication in the analysis. Let’s see…I’m not sure I learned much new information (except for the bits about all the icky things that can go wrong to women in labour…those health problems were new to me), but I did like the presentation. The combination of a general overview, along with personal stories, and then recommendations for change really worked for me!
I guess that’s about all that I have to say on it. Any last thoughts from you?
Heather: Any last thoughts… well, one last thing I’d like to add is that since we started our discussion on the book, Oprah actually featured it on her show, and on her site she has many of the same resources that Half the Sky talked about. Just in case anyone reading this wants to get involved immediately (like, before reading the book for yourself, which is totally awesome), you can go to Oprah.com and there are many quick links on how you can help right now.
But, in conclusion, I recommend the book! It wasn’t perfect for me, but like you said, Eva, it’s a great general overview of the issues women are facing worldwide today, and I loved the resources on how the average person can make a difference.
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