Half the sky

Half the sky is part of a proclamation made by Mao Zedong, 'women hold up half the sky'. It may also refer to:

References

Half the Sky

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is a book by the husband-wife team of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn published by Knopf in September 2009. The book argues that the oppression of women worldwide is "the paramount moral challenge" of the present era, much as the fight against slavery was in the past.

Overview

Half the Sky focuses on sex trafficking, maternal mortality, sexual violence, microfinance and girls' education. Carolyn See, the book critic of The Washington Post, said in her review: "'Half the Sky' is a call to arms, a call for help, a call for contributions, but also a call for volunteers. It asks us to open our eyes to this enormous humanitarian issue. It does so with exquisitely crafted prose and sensationally interesting material....I really do think this is one of the most important books I have ever reviewed."

Several nonprofit organizations mentioned in Half the Sky have produced additional events and materials in support of the book, including a live event from CARE and a reader's companion from EngenderHealth.

Nicholas Kristof

Nicholas Donabet Kristof (born April 27, 1959) is an American journalist, author, op-ed columnist, and a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. He has written an op-ed column for The New York Times since November 2001, and The Washington Post says that he "rewrote opinion journalism" with his emphasis on human rights abuses and social injustices, such as human trafficking and the Darfur conflict. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has described Kristof as an "honorary African" for shining a spotlight on neglected conflicts.

Life and career

Nicholas D. Kristof (who as of 2014 uses the simpler byline of "Nicholas Kristof", without the middle initial D., as he explains online) was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up on a sheep and cherry farm in Yamhill, Oregon. He is the son of Jane Kristof (née McWilliams) and Ladis "Kris" Kristof (born Wladyslaw Krzysztofowicz), both long-time professors at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. His father was born of Polish and Armenian parents in the former Austria-Hungary, and immigrated to the United States after World War II. Nicholas Kristof graduated from Yamhill Carlton High School, where he was student body president and school newspaper editor, and later became a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College. At Harvard, he studied government and worked on The Harvard Crimson newspaper; "Alums recall Kristof as one of the brightest undergraduates on campus," according to a profile in the Crimson. After Harvard, he studied law at Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned his law degree with first-class honors and won an academic prize. Afterward, he studied Arabic in Egypt for the 1983–84 academic year. He has a number of honorary degrees.

One half

One half is the irreducible fraction resulting from dividing one by two (¹⁄₂), or the fraction resulting from dividing any number by its double. Multiplication by one half is equivalent to division by two, or halving; conversely, division by one half is equivalent to multiplication by two, or "doubling". One half appears often in mathematical equations, recipes, measurements, etc. Half can also be said to be one part of something divided into two equal parts.

For instance, the area S of a triangle is computed

One half also figures in the formula for calculating figurate numbers, such as triangular numbers and pentagonal numbers:

and in the formula for computing magic constants for magic squares

The Riemann hypothesis states that every nontrivial complex root of the Riemann zeta function has a real part equal to ¹⁄₂.

One half has two different decimal expansions, the familiar 0.5 and the recurring 0.49999999... It has a similar pair of expansions in any even base. It is a common trap to believe these expressions represent distinct numbers: see the proof that 0.999... equals 1 for detailed discussion of a related case. In odd bases, one half has no terminating representation, only a single representation with a repeating fractional component, such as 0.11111111... in ternary.

Sheryl WuDunn

Sheryl WuDunn (born November 16, 1959) is an American business executive, writer, lecturer, and Pulitzer Prize winner.

A senior banker focusing on growth companies in technology, new media and the emerging markets, WuDunn also works with double bottom line firms, alternative energy issues, and women entrepreneurs. She has also been a private wealth adviser with Goldman Sachs and was previously a journalist and business executive for The New York Times. She is now senior managing director at Mid-Market Securities , a boutique investment banking firm in New York serving small and medium companies.

At the Times, WuDunn ran coverage of global energy, global markets, foreign technology and foreign industry. She oversaw international business topics ranging from China's economic growth to technology in Japan, from oil and gas in Russia to alternative energy in Brazil. She was also anchor of The New York Times Page One, a nightly program of the next day's stories in the Times. She also worked in the Times's Strategic Planning Department and in the Circulation Department, where she ran the effort to build the next generation of readers for the newspaper. She was one of the few people at the Times who went back and forth between the news and business sides of the organization.