Gena Asher | March 2, 2010
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| Courtesy photo |
| Sheryl WuDunn speaks at 7 p.m. March 8 at Alumni Hall. |
WuDunn and her husband, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, are authors of a new book, Half the Sky: From Oppression to Opportunity for Women Worldwide, which exposes feudal attitudes about women ranging from sexual exploitation to quiet negligence.
“We’re really excited to have her,” said School of Journalism Marketing Director Kurtis Beavers. “She’ll be a great addition to our speaker series.”
Beavers explained School of Journalism students and faculty as well as representatives from around campus, including the Office of Women’s Affairs and the Women’s Student Association, will take part in a reception and dinner in conjunction with WuDunn’s talk.
“There’s a lot of excitement about her visit across campus,” said Beavers.
The timing is appropriate as Thursday is International Women’s Day, and in recognition of that, movie theaters across the nation are airing Half the Sky, a video presentation featuring discussions, documentaries and speakers addressing many topics highlighted in the book. (Locally, Showplace East will show the film at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.)
But any day of the year, many of these stories have gone untold, the authors say, even while the world’s attention has been turned to other types of inequity. Further, the authors say changing the treatment of women “can be a successful poverty-fighting strategy anywhere in the world.”
The couple has collaborated before. They won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of Tiananmen Square in Beijing. They are the first couple to win a Pulitzer, and WuDunn is the first female Asian-American winner.
WuDunn witnessed many of the conditions she describes in the book while reporting on the tough regimes of Myanmar and North Korea for The New York Times. She covered China and worked in the Tokyo bureau on economic and financial issues.
Putting her Harvard MBA to further use, she shifted into working in strategic planning for the newspaper, helping develop business and marketing opportunities. WuDunn recently worked for Goldman Sachs as an adviser, guiding investors through the economic meltdown of 2008.
The other two series speakers are New York Times London bureau chief John F. Burns March 29 and writer Ken Auletta April 19. Read more about them at this link.
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