Marin, Ma. Karla Kristina Socio 101- Prof.

Baula

Half the Sky Integration Paper

The four-hour documentary Half the Sky is all about the different kinds of oppression
that the women around the world are experiencing and how these women turned these hardships
they are experiencing into opportunities for empowerment. Journalists Nicholas Kristoff went to
different places all over the world where the women oppression is the worst along with several
celebrities, because like what is said in the documentary, that having these celebrities tagging
along the journey will help to inform the people easily about what is really happening.
The documentary started off at Sierra Leone where rape is widespread. The story focused
on a fourteen year-old girl that is raped by her uncle which happens to be a pastor. And this said
uncle did not only screw her but also other young girls as well. When they found the uncle, he
was taken to the police, but later on he was set free for his family begged the fourteen year old to
give him another chance. In the end, the fourteen year-olds father asked her to go and not return
to their home for she brought shame to their family. On cultural relativism perspective, its in the
African culture to tolerate the rapists for it is a pride for their men to devirginize a woman or a
girl, for that matter which is why these men are raping young girls and can go as far as screwing
a two and a half year old girl. It has been customary for them that men are more dominant so,
pride is really important for them and the men shouldnt be blamed for having this kind of
culture for it has been practiced for many years now, and its not like they could just change it
dramatically just because someone thinks it is wrong. As for the ethnocentric perspective, it is
indeed a violation of womens right to rape them just because it was practiced for a long time in
your place. That doesnt make it right. Not everything that is being done for a quite some time
that it became a part of your culture or your system is right. And it is indeed an abuse of
childrens right to rape a two and a half year old child. I mean, for heavens sake, a man
screwing a kid who doesnt have the slightest idea what is happening to the world and at a young
age, she is already exposed to this kind of abuse. No kid deserves to have that kind of childhood
because everyone deserves a normal one. It is very fortunate that after a long time, women in
Sierra Leone are now starting to stand up for their rights and women are being empowered, with
the help of Rainbo Foundation, women and young girls who are being raped or abused are now
being educated to fight for their rights and are being taken good care of. Like with the case of
the fourteen year old girl, where, with the support of Rainbo foundation, finally, she was able to
speak up about the abuse that she suffered from her uncle. Although after only some time, she
agreed to let her uncle go out of the prison because his family begged her. And this decision
made her father blame her instead for what happened to her, that it somehow looked like shes
the one who provoked her uncle to rape her and that brought shame to her family. But despite
this kind of treatment, along with her mother, they are staying strong and are moving on with
their lives as stronger and more empowered women.
The second story was focused on Cambodia where sex trafficking among young girls
happen. Nicholas and his team went to Somaly Mam Foundation that is founded by Somaly who
experienced being a sex slave when she was only thirteen years old. Somaly is saving women
and young girls from their brutal brothels and keep them from being a sex slave and to help them
with their recovery, she is helping these girls be educated. In an ethnocentric perspective, I think
that it isnt right that brothels are being accepted. They are turning little girls into sex slaves and
at a very young age, girls should just be playing around, having the time of their lives. They
shouldnt be abused and they shouldnt experience different sexual acts by different men. They
shouldnt be beaten if they are not able to earn enough money or they werent able to entertain
many clients because it is not their job. It shouldnt be their job. They deserve a normal life
where they are carefree. They shouldnt be worrying every single day if they have sexually
transmitted disease, or worst, HIV. At that age, they were supposed to be building their dreams,
planning their future, not worrying if theyre going to live the next day because they are
suffering from a deadly disease that they shouldnt have in the first place. And with the
widespread militarization all over their place, they werent supposed to fear for their lives just
because they were fighting and standing up for their rights. They were supposed to sing songs
like ABC, Row Row your Boat and the likes in school, not songs on how they were beaten up or
abused by these evil people who were very selfish that they didnt even care if they were
destroying a childs future. Women should really stand up for their rights, be educated and fight
for what is right. There should be more like Somaly who was brave enough to get over what
happened to her and despite her experience, chose to change the path that she is taking and she
even brought other girls with her. On a cultural relativism perspective, like what I said on the
first story, it is their culture, and we should just respect it. People in Cambodia were left with no
choice but to sell their children or turn into being a brothel to be able to live. Everyone is doing
everything they can just so they can eat three times a day. It may be thought of as brutality but
they are only resorting to that kind of livelihood because if not, if they are not going to do
something about their lives, they would die of poverty. Because of too much poverty and
hardships in their lives, living for them turned into survival of the fittest. Those who are fit
enough or able to think of a way to live, lives and those who were weak to survive, dies. They
couldnt just depend on anyone to live, and at the same time, it has been part of their system,
their everyday lives, so we cant really consider it wrong.
The third part of the documentary was concentrated on the lives of the women and young
girls in Vietnam where gender discrimination is very severe. Girls are not allowed to attain and
education higher than seventh grade for men prefers to marry women who are illiterate for in this
case, women will serve their purpose which is to stay at home and take care of the children. Girls
in Vietnam who persevere to finish school and even get into a university have to go through a lot
just to get to school. On a structural functionalist perspective, it is just right not to let girls attain
an education higher than seventh grade. I mean, they were lucky enough that they were given a
chance to study in first grade. First of all, you dont need to be literate to be able to manage the
household. You dont need mathematics or science to clean your house, cook food and take care
of the kids. All a girl or a woman needs is her natural caring and nurturing personality, and for
mothers, their maternal instincts. Women are very suitable for household work so they dont
really need to be educated. And by not being educated at all, they are serving their purpose,
which is to be submissive to their husbands and treat him as alpha male. In this way, the social
roles of men and women are in balance. On a social-conflict theory perspective, this
discrimination can be rooted to the kind of system we are living in, that our world is patriarchal
and up until now, men are considered to be dominant which is not right. The vulnerability of
women cause by the system is being used by the society to oppress the women more. Just
because women are considered inferior before, they are to be considered one up to now. Times
are changing, inequality between men and women should stop. A woman can do what a man
does, so does a man can do what a woman does. We shouldnt be trapped in the mentality that
women will always be inferior to men and that the womens sole purpose in this world is to serve
the men. Men and women are both humans. They have the same number of bones, same number
of chromosomes thats why people should start practicing equality. Women have their right to be
educated and be literate. With our times changing, we cannot expect that women will stay quiet
about the kind of discrimination and abuses that they are experiencing. Men and women should
be given equal opportunities and one sex shouldnt be inferior to another.
The start of the second half of the documentary is all about the female genital mutilation
in Somaliland. Women in this place are not given proper maternal health care. Because of
poverty, pregnant women cannot afford to go to the hospital at the time of their labor, and they
are just attended by a traditional midwife who uses unsanitary materials that usually causes the
deaths of the child and the mother. Also, female genital mutilation is quite popular in this place,
but it is not even conducted in a hospital, it is being done using traditional ways where they only
use plant thorns to sew or cut the genitals of the women. On a cultural relativism perspective, we
cannot really blame the women of Somaliland who undergo female genital mutilation for it has
been a part of their tradition and we cant really just take that away from them just because we
think that it is wrong. It is the Somalilands women choice to undergo this mutilation, and at the
same time, the one who conducts the operation has been doing this for a long time now and this
is her only source of income, so no one could really take that away from her. Besides, we cant
really judge if what they are doing is right or wrong because basically, we are basing it from the
culture that we have. So, we just have to keep an open-minded and just accept that it is their
culture and it has been customary for them to undergo this kind of procedure. Using my
ethnocentric perspective, female genital mutilation is a grave violence of womens rights. Like
what they said in the documentary, females are the one who give birth, who bring life to this
world. Isnt the pain of conceiving a child enough that they just have to make it more difficult for
Somaliland females by circumcising them? And at the same time, they are using plan thorns for
heavens sake to do the procedure and it is very unhygienic for well never know what kind of
bacteria and insects lived in that plant thorns. They dont even have anesthesia during the
operation which puts the women to unnecessary pain. And at the time that they conceive a child,
they were having difficulty during the labor because their opening was too narrow (due to the
operation) which causes the death of the mother and of the child. Poverty in Somaliland can be
seen anywhere. Many women die every day not just because of their pregnancy but for their lack
of health care. They are suffering from simple diseases that can be treated easily but because
they lack resources, they end up not surviving the illness or disease that they have. Their
government should focus on these kinds of issues. The people of Somaliland cant just depend on
Edna Adans Hospital because they cant really accommodate everyone at once whenever one
needs it. Their government should take responsibility and take action so that the lives of the
women in Somaliland will be much easier and less painful, and if these changes happen, there
will be a big possibility that the mortality rate of women and babies will be lower.
In India, we can see a clear image of Feminization of Poverty. Women are forced to be
prostitutes because of the severe poverty that they are experiencing. Young girls, instead of
going to school are entertaining customers so that they could earn money for their family.
Mothers are forced to sell their bodies just so their children could eat three times a day and they
can provide for their families. The face of poverty in India are women for they have no choice
but to sell their bodies and risk being treated and called dirty so that they could live, so that their
families could live. Men are simply useless. They are just letting the women shoulder everything
thats why women become the bread winner of their families, but then, they couldnt afford to be
educated thats why they resort to prostitution. Some mothers who experienced being a prostitute
strives hard, so that their daughters wont experience the same thing. But not everyone has that
kind of views or should I say, they may have that kind of views but they dont have the capacity
to make their children lives different from theirs. Prostituting younger girls means more money
thats why even though some mothers dont want their children or young daughters to experience
this kind of cruelty; they were left with no choice because of poverty. What we need here is to
give women a chance to prove themselves. Give them a chance to study and be educated, for in
this way, they could come up with much better solutions to their problems because opportunities
are being opened to them and they will stop resorting to prostitution. Women shouldnt be the
face of poverty; they should be the face of strength and empowerment.
In Kenya, as to what I have seen in the documentary, people here live in the worst
possible state of poverty. Some people just sleep anywhere for they dont have a shelter; they
dont have houses to come home to. Women in this place are basically the bread winners. They
couldnt entrust their own lives and their childrens to their husbands because men dont really
prioritize their family when they earn money. They prioritize their vices, and sometimes they
even ask money from their wives just so they can continue with their vices (drinking, etc.) That
is why women here are keeping their money from their husbands. They are hiding it in their
clothes or somewhere in their houses, they risk being beaten up by their husbands just to make
sure that they have money for their children. In the documentary, they have interviewed a
woman with four children and raised them all by her. She is considered deviant because usually,
no matter how hard your husband beats you, women in their place dont normally leave their
husbands and this woman did. Right now, she owns a dress making business that sustains her
familys needs. She was able to send all of her children to school despite being a single mother.
At times, she is having trouble finding or earning money to provide everything that her children
needs, but then again, she knows that God will provide as long as she does her part. She may
have a dark past, but she chose to be different, and rose from the darkness she was once in. She
may be different, she may be considered deviant, but it can be witnessed that her deviance helped
her attain her dreams for her children and she could consider herself, her family rich, unlike other
families for she was able to provide for her childrens education. Deviance isnt really bad at all
and with situations like this, women should learn to be deviant. Women should learn to be
different from all of the stereotypes for women can do anything. They shouldnt be caged on
labels and how the world perceives them. Women should learn how to free themselves from that
cage and show the world that they are different from the way the world perceives them because
like what I have witnessed in the documentary, if you give a woman a chance, even a very small
chance; she could make big things out of it.
Half the Sky simply shows us that there is hope for everyone, that no matter what
challenge, what suffering you have gone through, you can get past through that and you can even
use that as a motivation to do better, and make great things happen. Women are a concrete
example of this. Women can make big things out of small things and they could rise up from
every discrimination, abuse, stereotype and hardships that life is giving them. Truly, empowering
women results to empowering the society.