For those of you reading who don't already know this, I am cynical, white, prep school girl. It's really hard for me to have it better in life. I am from the North East of the United States and I go to school in Greenwich, CT. I am lucky as hell. As much as I hate the phrase (which you will know if you spend any time reading my rants), I was pretty much born an "empowered woman". It is rare that any speaker can bring global issues home for me. That just happened.
Nicholas Kristof is a New York Times columnist and the author of Half the Sky. He's awesome as hell. He works against human trafficking and to support women across the globe. That's a gross understatement considering I just had the opportunity to listen to him talk about his mission for an hour; but you don't have all day to read, and I don't have all day to talk about this man's work. The basic thesis of his work is that women across the globe are the key to, if not solving, ameliorating many of the world's issues. Specifically, educating women is the key to working toward solving the vast majority of our global issues. It's not the end all be all of fixing the world, mind you, but it can do a lot. Education for women reduces birth rates, reduces the risk of contracting AIDS and other STDs, helps add sources of income to impoverished families, improves global health across the board, and improves the living conditions of communities as a whole, among other things. Admittedly, making this happen does kind of involve throwing money at the problem; but another big point Kristof had to make was that raising awareness is key. That's why he advocates for travel. He calls for all of us to travel to places that take us out of our comfort zones (not necessarily to places like Darfur and Cambodia, it could be to a prison in your area). I really think he's doing great work, and I applaud him for it.
And now I get to criticise, because, as y'all know, I can't be entirely positive on everything. Firstly, I question the tone of his exhortation to the GA student body to travel alone. To places in which we are out of our comfort zones. As women. Alone. I think that's both a little dangerous and also not quite the right way to travel. Travel gets fun when you have people with which to share it. Secondly, and this is more about my school (which I love to criticise) than about the speech itself. Apparently, because we are an all girls school, we are contributing to the education of women globally in an impactful way. Go back up to the first paragraph of this post where I talk about myself. I'll wait. Have you reread that? Good. Now can you please explain to me how our school, in our community is doing anything for the area immediately around us. I respect stuff like the faculty beard growing competition (its pretty awesome and its actually happening) which is raising money by encouraging us to donate for the privilege of deciding how the faculty members participating will shave at the end of February, but I honestly don't think that we can do much to incorporate the idea that "the enfranchisement of women is the key moral quandary of the 21st century" or the idea that "women aren't part of the problem; they're part of the solution" into our message. Our headmistress talks about incorporating these messages by making our buzz word of the year "Citizenship" and by (and this is not a joke) posting Kristof quotes in our hallways. Apparently, by virtue of being an all girls school, we support Kristof's message in our community by existing. I am a fan of education, but I don't think that simply by existing Greenwich Academy is doing much.
So, all that said, what do you think of Kristof, his work and his message?
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