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NYT journalist recruits women’s rights activists
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By ELLEN SCHUR BROWN
Editor, Family Section
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof found an audience of ready advocates to help improve the lives of women at the 115th opening meeting of the National Council for Jewish Women, Cleveland Section (NCJW).
With their mission of taking action on issues surrounding the needs of women, children and families, NCJW members embraced the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner’s “Half the Sky Movement” to end oppression of women. He called it “the central moral challenge of our century” and compared it to the abolitionists who stopped the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 19th century.
Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Alfred A. Knopf) is Kristof’s latest book, written with his wife, journalist Sheryl WuDunn. Based on their reporting over decades on six continents, Kristof and WuDunn suggest there are 100 million women “missing” from the world’s population due to differential access to food and medical care, sex-selective abortions, wife beating, and sex trafficking.
Pregnancy and childbirth are a real danger to women in the developing world, with a one in seven chance of mothers dying of some childbirth-related complication.
“Talking about the immorality of denying medical care for girls sounds like hyperbole,” Kristof told his audience Oct. 1 at Temple Emanu El. But he has come to realize that protecting women is not only a moral imperative, it’s an economic one. “Women are the solution to problems of poverty and extremism, and that is the message of this book,” he continued.
In the developing world, men control the family budget, spending much of their limited income on alcohol, tobacco, and festivals, leaving very little for educating the children. When women have the skills to earn money – for example, with small loans to start a business (called microfinancing) – children are the beneficiaries, receiving more food and medical care.
His presentation and slide show introduced Saima, a beleaguered mother of two girls in Pakistan. Her husband beat her until a microfinance group gave her $65 to start a business. With her talent for embroidery, she prospered. Soon she was farming out work to 30 households in her village and hired her “deadbeat husband” to haul the goods.
“You can’t address poverty or extremism if you’re not using half your population,” concludes Kristof.
Half the Sky includes the stories of many resilient women he has met who have succeeded in ways that activists can, he hopes, replicate. Another main theme deals with the immorality of sex trafficking.
“I don’t think we can eliminate prostitution, but we can reduce the number of 13-year-old girls who are kidnapped and enslaved in brothels,” he said. In one of his memorable columns, Kristof wrote about two young girls who were sold to a brothel in Cambodia, one by her father, one by a vindictive neighbor. Kristof retells asking lawyers for The New York Times “if the paper had a policy on buying human beings,” and he was able to buy the two girls out of slavery for a few hundred dollars.
While the NCJW audience was supportive of Kristof’s views on women’s rights, his support of human rights does not always include Israeli civilians or settlers. CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, is critical of “his simplistic view of Israel as the major obstacle to peace.”
“I go and report, and I call it as I see it,” Kristof said in a CJN interview before his public remarks. In his view, last year’s “assault on Gaza” and expanding settlements reduced any chance of a meaningful peace agreement.
ebrown@cjn.org
Action steps from Kristof
• Visit kiva.org or globalgiving.org to fund a grassroots project.
• Exchange letters with a girl or woman through Plan International, Women for Women International, World Vision, or American Jewish World Service.
• Become a citizen advocate; check out the CARE Action Network at www.care.org.
With their mission of taking action on issues surrounding the needs of women, children and families, NCJW members embraced the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner’s “Half the Sky Movement” to end oppression of women. He called it “the central moral challenge of our century” and compared it to the abolitionists who stopped the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 19th century.
Half The Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Alfred A. Knopf) is Kristof’s latest book, written with his wife, journalist Sheryl WuDunn. Based on their reporting over decades on six continents, Kristof and WuDunn suggest there are 100 million women “missing” from the world’s population due to differential access to food and medical care, sex-selective abortions, wife beating, and sex trafficking.
Pregnancy and childbirth are a real danger to women in the developing world, with a one in seven chance of mothers dying of some childbirth-related complication.
“Talking about the immorality of denying medical care for girls sounds like hyperbole,” Kristof told his audience Oct. 1 at Temple Emanu El. But he has come to realize that protecting women is not only a moral imperative, it’s an economic one. “Women are the solution to problems of poverty and extremism, and that is the message of this book,” he continued.
In the developing world, men control the family budget, spending much of their limited income on alcohol, tobacco, and festivals, leaving very little for educating the children. When women have the skills to earn money – for example, with small loans to start a business (called microfinancing) – children are the beneficiaries, receiving more food and medical care.
His presentation and slide show introduced Saima, a beleaguered mother of two girls in Pakistan. Her husband beat her until a microfinance group gave her $65 to start a business. With her talent for embroidery, she prospered. Soon she was farming out work to 30 households in her village and hired her “deadbeat husband” to haul the goods.
“You can’t address poverty or extremism if you’re not using half your population,” concludes Kristof.
Half the Sky includes the stories of many resilient women he has met who have succeeded in ways that activists can, he hopes, replicate. Another main theme deals with the immorality of sex trafficking.
“I don’t think we can eliminate prostitution, but we can reduce the number of 13-year-old girls who are kidnapped and enslaved in brothels,” he said. In one of his memorable columns, Kristof wrote about two young girls who were sold to a brothel in Cambodia, one by her father, one by a vindictive neighbor. Kristof retells asking lawyers for The New York Times “if the paper had a policy on buying human beings,” and he was able to buy the two girls out of slavery for a few hundred dollars.
While the NCJW audience was supportive of Kristof’s views on women’s rights, his support of human rights does not always include Israeli civilians or settlers. CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, is critical of “his simplistic view of Israel as the major obstacle to peace.”
“I go and report, and I call it as I see it,” Kristof said in a CJN interview before his public remarks. In his view, last year’s “assault on Gaza” and expanding settlements reduced any chance of a meaningful peace agreement.
ebrown@cjn.org
Action steps from Kristof
• Visit kiva.org or globalgiving.org to fund a grassroots project.
• Exchange letters with a girl or woman through Plan International, Women for Women International, World Vision, or American Jewish World Service.
• Become a citizen advocate; check out the CARE Action Network at www.care.org.
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