eminism might have
become a less popular
movement over the
F past decade, but
across the UK and
western world its message has
always been widely accepted:
stop discrimination against women.
And from the outside looking in,
we’re slowly getting there. We have
the vote, a female prime minister in
Australia (and not forgetting formerly
in the UK) and a female president
in Finland. On 2 July, after years of
campaigning, the United Nations
40 WWW.STYLIST.CO.UK
THE WAR ON
WOMEN
The shocking truth about violence against women and female gendercide
voted to launch UN Women – a body
with the sole purpose of meeting the
needs of women and girls worldwide.
But scratch the surface, and the
picture’s not quite so rosy. In the UK
women are still paid less money for
doing exactly the same job as our
male counterparts and there are
only 126 female MPs, out of a total of
646 members of British Parliament.
The number of women holding top
positions in FTSE 100 companies is
on the decline. Meanwhile, the
gross sexualisation of women by
the media is increasing.
WORDS: KATE GRAHAM
However, a ground-breaking
new book, Half The Sky, by Sheryl
WuDunn and her husband Nicholas
Kristof, exposes the fact that female
discrimination has a deeper, darker
grasp on our 21st century world than
we would like to imagine. The stories
they uncovered aren’t pretty, but
they are absolutely crucial to hear.
Around the world more females
have been killed in the past 50 years
simply because they are women, than
all the men killed in all the wars of the
20th century. Girls are being starved
by their parents so their brothers can
eat. Girls have their vaginas cut apart
without anaesthetic, so they can be
‘clean’. These things are happening to
women right now purely because of
their gender. “This is gendercide,”
says WuDunn. “Women are being
literally discriminated to death.”
The shocking exposé of Half
The Sky is a call-to-arms. It has
received support from Angelina
Jolie who called it, “an inspiration
for those fighting for justice.”
Read on for the facts about what
it really means to be a woman in
the 21st century.
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