I promised I would blog about this last weekend, but as I'm involved in volunteer emergency services, one has to go when one is called. So this is my first chance, and I fear it's brief.If you haven't yet put this book on our list, do so soon. It's inspiring yet shocking, it's compelling yet scary, and, from my own experiences in this field, it's very accurate. As the back cover says its 'a call to arms against the most shocking and widespread human rights violation of our age'. It's talking about the fight for equality for women and their daughters around the world.
I've not yet finished it, but here's just two powerful quotes for now.
* note of warning - this is terrifying....
Violence against women is also constantly mutating into new forms. The first documented acid attack occurred in 1967, in what is now Bangladesh. Now it is increasingly common for men in South Asia or South East Asia to take sulfuric acid and hurl it in the faces of girls or women who have spurned them. The acid melts the skin and sometimes the bones underneath; it it strikes the eyes, the woman is blinded. In the world of misogyny, that is technological innovation.... such violence often function to keep women down....... in many poor countries, the problem is not so much individual thugs and rapists but an entire culture of sexual preditation....++ on a more encouraging note - the authors share stories of the work of social entrepreneur such as Zach Hunter (now in High School) who started the Loose Change to Loosen Chains campaign. It's the inclusion of these positive change focused case studies that makes this book so valuable - we can be a part of change too.
Aid workers function in the context of an aid bureaucracy, while social entrepreneurs create their own context by starting a new organisation, company, or movement to address social problems in a creative way. ... they tend not to have the traditional liberal suspicion of capitalism... They are not content just to give a fish or to teach how to fish - they will not rest until they have revolutionised the fishing industry (Bill Drayton).I'd like to provide more of my own analysis - but time prevents that for today. More soon. Don't forget, you can fin out more at Halfthesky.
4 comments:
Hi T - glad to hear you are enjoying this one. I have it on my shelf - with many, many others - waiting to be picked up.
Sulfuric acid! Such an image--those poor women. Thank you for sharing the information about this book and the organization. I will look for it.
This reminds me of the horrors I read in Ali Hirsi's book Infidel. So much wrong in the world...
This was one of our book club books and will be a PBS special next year. Pretty eye opening, pretty horrible. But an important read.
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