Half the Sky: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

The Shame of “Honor”. The hymen, Kristof and WuDunn explain, is an object of worship and symbol of honor in many cultures. For that reason, a torn hymen is a motive to murder girls. Virginity has been valued across history, the authors explain, and virgins have been bought and sold. Today, this persists in parts of the Middle East. The authors write that, “the paradox of honor killings,” in which a woman is murdered for suspicion of impurity, “is that societies with the most rigid moral codes end up sanctioning behavior that is supremely immoral: murder.”

The authors tell the story of Du’a Aswad, a seventeen-year-old Kurdish girl living in Iraq, who spent a night with a Sunni Arab boy. Though honor killings are outlawed in Iraq, the authors report that security forces watched a thousand men participate in Du’a’s killing, ripping off her skirt, kicking her “as if she were a soccer ball,” and dropping stones and concrete bricks onto her. Afterward, some men covered her body in the street. This is one of an estimated 5,000-6,000 honor killings a year, the authors write. That statistic doesn’t cover honor rapes, in which rape is used to systematically disgrace and terrorize women. In Darfur, the authors report, rape was a strategic weapon for Sudanese-sponsored militias, and women who sought medical help afterward were punished, to prevent negative publicity. Reports of mass rapes are staggering, such as the estimated 90% of women in parts of Liberia during the civil war. One doctor tells the authors that he discourages survivors from going to the police, because the police will rape them.

Eastern Congo, the authors write, is the “world capital of rape,” where militias attack civilians, raping women with bayonets or shooting guns into their vaginas. When one three-year-old in Congo was raped, then shot, her father killed himself. The authors report a former UN general as saying, “It has probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict.”

Kristof and WuDunn introduce Dina, a teenager the authors met in her Congolese village, Kindu. One day before sunset, Dina told the authors, while walking home from her bean field, five Hutu militiamen – despite having no conflict with her village – raped her, then punctured her insides with a stick. Afterward, she developed a fistula in her organs, with feces and urine draining down her legs. The authors describe meeting Laurent Nkundu, a warlord and welcoming host who denied any use of rape by his soldiers. But, they write, “everyone knows that rape is routine.” A male teenage soldier even told the authors that rape is the soldiers’ right.

While most casualties in these conflicts are male, violence toward women—rape, disfigurement, and torture—are used to “terrorize the rest of the population.” When Dina told Kristof and WuDunn her story, a line of women lined up, wanting to tell their story of rape as well. After her ordeal, Dina sought help in the city of Goma, from HEAL Africa, a hospital where she was placed with dozens of other women with fistulas. Physical therapy and surgery helped her heal before her return to Kindu, back to the threat of more rape.

“Study Abroad”—in the Congo. Kristof and WuDunn describe HEAL Africa as a “sanctuary of dignity” from the misogyny in Congo, where Harper McConnell, a young American women, among others, gives important help to patients. Using Harper as an example, the authors recommend that those seeking to help gender inequity issues first acquaint themselves with other cultures. Studying abroad or taking gap years in developing countries, rather than visiting Europe, deepens the worldviews of young people. While violence is a real threat for women abroad, American and European women tend to be treated hospitably, and even have more opportunities for volunteer work than men do, since men may not be allowed to teach girls, the authors write. Most of the groups mentioned in Half the Sky accept committed volunteers.

After Harper graduated from the University of Minnesota, unsure of what to do with her life, she arranged with her church to work as an onsite volunteer at HEAL Africa. HEAL Africa is a major and successful hospital, where all but three employees are Congolese and acquiring resources as basic as water, electricity, and bandages is a feat. As a single young American, living in Goma can be challenging, but Harper reports benefits: in bed with malaria once, she thought she saw Ben Affleck hovering above her. It wasn’t a hallucination – Affleck had come to visit the hospital. At twenty-three, Harper also started a valuable skills-training program women can attend while awaiting surgery. Skills like weaving and soap-making give women the chance for economic independence. Despite missing amenities, Harper reports loving her life in Goma, from “rejoicing with a family over their improved harvest” to “dancing with [her] coworkers over a grant awarded for a program.”