The national best-selling book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, written by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, highlights the dilemmas, such as sexual violence and exploitation, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality, women in the Third World face daily. The authors single out non-Western men and the negligence of Western support as the downfall to many women’s movements and gendered violence in the developing world. They stress the importance of Western aid in the developing world to empower women affected by these injustices. Although Krisof and WuDunn attempt to discuss the plight of poor foreign women with the best intentions, the authors unfortunately over-emphasize the importance of the West that results in the reader observing these women as feeble bystanders in their own fate in need of Western salvation.
The book attempts to address the issues of sexual violence and forced prostitution, gender-based violence and maternal mortality through Western means. Each chapter begins with a horror story of a victimized woman who, under the repressive circumstances that her culture put upon her, was unable to be a whole person. Once the U.S. or another Western state provides aid, the life of the said woman is revitalized with Western guidance to succeed in a capitalist, free trade world. The authors suggest that her life would have never been complete without the “help” of the West. The anecdotes presented of the women who die or are badly mutilated are those that were not granted assistance through aid organizations.
They tell of a story of Rose, a woman who sought prenatal care and received health benefits from a clinic several miles from her village until aid wa...
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...Invaders, Heroic Victims and Depraved Villains: White Femininity in Media Coverage of the Invasion of Iraq” In (En)Gendering the War on Terror: War Stories and Camouflaged Politics. Edited by Krista Hunt and Kim Rygiel, Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company: 73-95
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It is difficult to realize the harsh standards and obligations imposed upon women of different cultures. It is especially disappointing to note that women whom may seek to relieve themselves of such discriminatory practices, face little to no government support in terms of fighting inequality. Such as distinguished in text The War Against Feminism, women of Algeria must fight against patriarchal and incredibly sexist political movements, such as the “Islamic Salvation Front,” which although was banned, had won an election and the promotion of their platform’s ideas despite their notions consisting of extreme patriarchal views and their actual assassinations of individuals not compliant with their beliefs. I also strongly agreed with the United Nations decision to aid individuals from fear of the Taliban, in their stating of refusing to continue aid to Afghanistan if intense cruel practices were to continue. The interference of other government agencies in helping to promote the end of cruelty, such as was occurring by the Taliban, act as great movement of defiance against
corporate powers take advantage of third world countries for their women. These women are subjected to horrid working conditions. The women work long hours with small amounts of sleep, food, and water. Multinational companies like the United States build production plants in third world countries to increase production inexpensively because they don’t have to pay greedy Americans. The women around the world working in production plants are dehumanized. For the rest of their lives they will only know how to work in hard labor. Hard labor doesn’t have to be physically taxing; it can also be mentally taxing. Jobs like bar girls, prostitutes, and hostesses are mentally taxing on these women. Pleasing other men every night for only their pleasure just to make ends meet does not bring positive thoughts to a woman’s mind. Third world women deserve equal rights just like the women in first world countries. Corporate powers will no longer take advantage of these women if one takes a stand against
In the book, Half The Sky, author’s Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn bring to light the oppression of women in the developing world. Anecdotal stories, filled with sadness, anger and hope, collected after years of reporting, depict just a few examples of this global struggle for women. At the end of their book organizations are listed, in alphabetical order, in hopes of creating a starting point for people to further support women in developing countries. With so many organization doing great work to empower women it becomes difficult to decide where money should be distributed. As a grant manager it is important to take a closer look at each of the organizations and their work to better assess where the money should go. However, the
As victim count continues to rise, its difficult to see how such great numbers of men, women and children are bought and sold every year. Trafficking can be found in many forms, including: prostitution, slavery, or forced labor (Harf and Lombardi, 2014). It wasn’t until the 1980’s that international human trafficking became globally noticed. With the lack of government intervention and control in several nations, and the free trade market, slavery once again became a profitable industry (Harf and Lombardi, 2014). As previously mentioned, easier movement across nations borders is one of the outcomes of globalization. It is also what makes human trafficking so easy today. It is estimated that about 20.9 million people are victims across the entire globe (United Nations Publications, 2012); trafficking accounts for 32 billion dollars in generated profit globally (Brewer, n.d). 58 percent of all human trafficking was for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and of this 55-60 percent are women (United Nations Publications,
She lists a series of abuse done to women that all start with “It is a violation of human rights when…” For example, she says, “It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution for human greed -- and the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this practice should no longer be tolerated.” These series of eight statements also gives a pathetic appeal because these types of tragedies cause the listener to have pity and compassion for the victim(s).
The treatment of third world women is horrible and no human being should be treated in such a way. They should be at least acknowledged as humans and not treated as some trash that just thrown onto the side of the road. At the end of
This paper is a review of the book Japan’s Comfort Women-Sexual slavery and prostitution during WWII and the US occupation by Yuki Tanaka. This book was published in 2002 by Routledge. The book deals with the thousands of Japanese, Korean, Chinese and other Asian and European women who were victims of organized sexual violence and prostitution by means of “comfort stations” setup by the Japanese military during World War II.
As Rafaela, Mamacita, and Sally’s examples show, the men living in the Mango Street neighborhood persecute their women. The men force their women to stay home. They also restrict their women’s rights by making them speak a new language, and in the extreme case, they beat their women. Although many negative aspects of gender may have lessened over the past few decades, the society should still work toward lessening more of these negative aspects around the world, and especially in the Middle East and North Africa, because extreme gender inequalities still exist today. Treating women inhumanely should be considered as extremely immoral, since we’re all human beings and born to be equal.
Kara, Siddharth. Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery. New York: Columbia UP, 2009. 5. Print.
Sexual exploitation exploits women and provides a vehicle for racism in a “first world” country like America, where victimization rates are disproportionately higher with “third world” women (O'Connor & Healy, 2007). Goodson is an anti-trafficking activist, is director of international programs for Shared Hope International which is an organization who works with victims of sex trafficking. From her experience, many victims are poor and are sexually abused children and young adults who are swayed by the promises of a better life. Once they reach the United States, the victims are psychologically and physically abused. In the United States, victims of international sex trafficking come primarily from South and Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa through states such as Florida, California and New York (Goodson, 2006). The U.S. Department of State estimates that about 600,000 to 800,000 people, mostly women and children, are trafficked across national borders annually. Furthermore, it is estimated that 17,500 to 20,000 victims are trafficked into the U.S. annually, with Florida receiving a high percentage of those victims. Although the people who enter the United States are often not legally permitted to enter the United States, Lagon asserts that it is important to note the difference between human
She decided to tackle the health problems of a small area of few roads and no physicians, called Leslie County in Eastern Kentucky. Here she tested to her health care plans, thinking that if she succeed here, she could succeed anywhere. Horse backing around Leslie County, she asked residents about health care needs and local lay-midwives about birth practices. The results from her surveys revealed that these nursing mothers were lacking prenatal care and that they were giving birth to large quantities of children often by invasive practice.
Parrot is an expert in cultural practices and the risks encountered in attempting to change them. She is currently writing a book on the topic with Nina Cummings, health educator and victim advocate at Gannett University Health Services at Cornell. Forsaken Figures: The Global Brutalization, Oppression, and Violence against Women catalogues, describes, and analyzes all manner of violence, subjugation, and gendercide against women from a global perspective. Many practices and cultural norms around the world, such as female genital mutilation, sexual slavery, and feticide/infanticide of female babies, are perceived as wrong by outside cultures, Parrot says. She is interested in determining how outside policymakers might begin to address what they see as problems when their own cultural language is vastly different from that of the communities and countries in which the practices are tolerated or even supported.
Brown, A. Widney., and LaShawn R. Jefferson. "VI. ILLUSTRATIVE CASES." Afghanistan, Humanity Denied: Systematic Denial of Women's Rights in Afghanistan. New York, NY.: Human Rights Watch, 2001. 16+. Print
In this text Mohanty argues that contemporary western feminist writing on Third World women contributes to the reproduction of colonial discourses where women in the South are represented as an undifferentiated “other”. Mohanty examines how liberal and socialist feminist scholarship use analytics strategies that creates an essentialist construction of the category woman, universalist assumptions of sexist oppression and how this contributes to the perpetuation of colonialist relations between the north and south(Mohanty 1991:55). She criticises Western feminist discourse for constructing “the third world woman” as a homogeneous “powerless” and vulnerable group, while women in the North still represent the modern and liberated woman (Mohanty 1991:56).
...action with others… especially men. This supplies final substantiation of the authors' argument, that women continue to be oppressed by their male-dominated societies. It is a bold undertaking for women to ally and promote a world movement to abandon sexist traditions. Although I have never lived in a third world or non-Westernized country, I have studied the conditions women suffer as "inferior" to men. In National Geographic and various courses I have taken, these terrible conditions are depicted in full color. Gender inequality is a terrible trait of our global society, and unfortunately, a trait that might not be ready to change. In America we see gender bias towards women in voters' unwillingness to elect more females into high office, and while this is not nearly as severe as the rest of the world, it indicates the lingering practice of gender inequality.