The traveling exhibition Women Hold Up Half the Sky was inspired by the critically acclaimed book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

Featuring documentary photographs, visual art, sound installations, and interactive opportunities for visitors to get involved, Women Hold Up Half the Sky was a wake-up call to the injustices perpetrated against women worldwide and the ways we can effect change.

Confronting the malign persistence of sex trafficking, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality, the exhibition told stories of women from around the globe who changed their lives through education, economics, and self-determination. Among them was Saima Muhammad, who lived in fear of her abusive husband and whose community ignored her suffering until she received a $65 microloan and built an embroidery business that now supports thirty families in her Pakistani village. The exhibition also spotlighted visionaries like Edna Adan Ismail, the former first lady of Somalia, who used her life savings to build a maternity hospital in war-torn Somaliland, prompting donations and support from all over the world.

Tour Schedule

Freedom Center
Cincinnati, Ohio
October 26, 2012–March 30, 2013 

Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center
Skokie, IL
September 25, 2016–January 22, 2017

Additional venues may be announced.

About the Authors

Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn are co-authors of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. Kristof writes an Op-Ed column for The New York Times. WuDunn is an investment advisor, with a focus on philanthropy. Together, they won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China. They have also won a George Polk Award and an Overseas Press Club Award.

Kristof also won a second Pulitzer Prize for his commentary on human rights issues, along with the Michael Kelly Award, the Online News Association Award, and the ASNE Award. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College and then studied law at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, graduating with first-class honors.

WuDunn, the first Asian American to win a Pulitzer, has been an executive at the New York Times and worked in finance at Goldman Sachs and Bankers Trust. She graduated from Cornell University and has master's degrees from Harvard Business School and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.

Together, they have also written two previous books about Asia: Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia and China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power.