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"Friday is International Women&amp;amp;#8217;s Day, and husband-wife duo Nicolas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, co-authors of Half the Sky, are kicking off the festivities with the launch of Half the Sky Movement: The Game. Produced by Games for Change, it&amp;amp;#8217;s pretty cool&amp;amp;#8212;and live on Facebook today. WuDunn spoke to Glamour about Half the Sky and why you should join the movement to turn female oppression to opportunity for women everywhere. GLAMOUR: People are calling violence against women the leading public health crisis of the 21st century. Tell us about the origins of Half the Sky and how it aims to address this oppression. SHERYL WUDUNN: When Nick and I were working as journalists in China and Japan, we wrote a book about China and another about Asia, and I wrote a chapter about women in each. It was an interesting subject, but when we noticed horrific things happening to women, we assumed, Oh, OK, this must just be what happens in Asia. When we came back to the States, I moved over to the corporate side of The New York Times, and Nick became a columnist and started going to Africa. That&amp;amp;#8217;s when he started realizing, Wow, there&amp;amp;#8217;s a lot of other ugly stuff that goes on targeted at women there too. We discovered a ton of commonalities and started researching them. That&amp;amp;#8217;s what turned into Half the Sky. GLAMOUR: In addition to the best-selling book, there&amp;amp;#8217;s Half the Sky, the PBS documentary, featuring celebs Olivia Wilde and America Ferrera, who join Nick in various countries to explore issues including female genital mutilation and maternal mortality. As of today, there&amp;amp;#8217;s also the Half the Sky Facebook game. What are the goals of the movement as it expands? SHERYL WUDUNN: We don&amp;amp;#8217;t ever ask people to leave what they&amp;amp;#8217;re doing and dedicate their lives to going off to India to help solve poverty there. But most people have some useful skill they&amp;amp;#8217;ve developed through their careers and in their lives. This movement takes everyone: We need accountants and computer programmers. We need marketers, social media experts, and just ordinary people who have passion to bring about change for women. There&amp;amp;#8217;s no one person sitting at a desk designing this movement or writing a business plan. Many people need to be involved and care. GLAMOUR: In the game, players start by guiding an animated woman, Radhika, around India as she faces obstacles common to women. Why demonstrate this via a game? SHERYL WUDUNN: We published the book and were delighted with the response, but we also know that reading is not America&amp;amp;#8217;s favorite pastime. The documentary garnered a larger audience and trended on Twitter, but the game has even greater potential to reach more people through something that hooks them. The issues raised about the challenges women face are just so brutal that it&amp;amp;#8217;s hard to turn away and forget them forever. GLAMOUR: The game clearly hits on heavy topics, but is also designed to be fun. Where&amp;amp;#8217;s the balance between awareness and entertainment as you play? SHERYL WUDUNN: We want people to be exposed to the issues and to tell their friends. There are fun, addicting features, but there are also elements that incorporate real-life nonprofits like Room to Read and a handful of NGOs. We partnered with Games for Change to produce something impacting: $500,000 in funds is now available for players to unlock and trigger real-life donations of books and life-saving surgeries from sponsors. GLAMOUR: The movement identifies sex trafficking and general violence against women as key issues. What&amp;amp;#8217;s the importance of increasing awareness around these subjects, not only on International Women&amp;amp;#8217;s Day? SHERYL WUDUNN: These issues aren&amp;amp;#8217;t just arcane things that happen way out there. Yes, sex trafficking occurs in Southeast Asia, where women are basically kidnapped and sold to brothels to work seven days a week without pay. It&amp;amp;#8217;s slavery because they have no control over their own lives. In the U.S., there are young teenage runaways, who, once they outstay the welcome of their friends, end up on the streets, probably picked up by a pimp with a lot of pressure to stay. They often feel enslaved by the relationship with these pimps. There&amp;amp;#8217;s still a great deal of rape and violence against women that goes on in America, so in that sense, there&amp;amp;#8217;s sex trafficking at home. GLAMOUR: What are a few of the particularly striking stories that have emerged from your and Nick&amp;amp;#8217;s reporting as real embodiments of women turning oppression into opportunity? SHERYL WUDUNN: We write about a former sex slave who, when she got out, went to start her own clinic to help other women escape from the brothels. You see really inspiring stories like that. There&amp;amp;#8217;s a wonderful Australian who went to Ethiopia just for a trip and ended up staying for decades, founding a hospital that does operations to solve problems in women who&amp;amp;#8217;ve had obstructed labor and lost their babies. GLAMOUR: What do you think has been the happiest, most gratifying moment of the Half the Sky movement thus far? SHERYL WUDUNN: Seeing increased involvement and change. The other day, I was coming out of the airport and someone said, &amp;amp;#8220;Oh, your book was great, and now I&amp;amp;#8217;m getting involved.&amp;amp;#8221; What&amp;amp;#8217;s inspiring about this movement is that women and men from all walks of life can choose a challenge they find the most compelling, given their experiences, and find a way to take action. Half the Sky&amp;amp;#8212;this idea that women hold up half the sky&amp;amp;#8212;is really all about people caring about women&amp;amp;#8217;s issues enough to do something. Will you play the game? Tell us what most inspires you to celebrate International Women&amp;amp;#8217;s Day. And read more about the Half the Sky movement (and how to get involved) here. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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