Nicholas Kristof couldn’t have found a more receptive audience.
A nearly full Memorial Hall audience of the two-time Pulitzer winner’s faithful listened intently as he challenged students to take on gender inequality worldwide.
“In this century, the central moral challenge … is going to be this profound gender inequality throughout the world,” he said.
Kristof delivered the annual Frank Porter Graham lecture. Series speakers are picked for their concern for the less fortunate, their commitment to freedom of speech and their confidence in students to affect change. Actress and author Anna Deavere Smith delivered last year’s speech.
His talk mirrored topics in his recently published third book, which he authored with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn.
Using the stories of women around the world, Kristof makes the case for stronger women’s rights as a solution to global poverty.
Much of his talk was familiar for longtime column readers, but the familiarity made it no easier to hear. He recounted his experience buying two Cambodian girls from brothels to almost near-silence, save for quiet gasps as he revealed how he received receipts for the girls.
“It was obviously unusual to end up buying two people,” he said.
He shared the stories of a girl whose eye was gouged out by a brothel owner, a woman who crawled for miles to be treated for a childbirth injury, and a Ugandan girl who was able to attend school and eventually college in the United States after her family was given a goat.
