Women’s Rights From an Academic Perspective

I read From Outrage to Courage for an online course on International Women’s Health and Human Rights I took from Stanford University, which was led by the author, Anne Firth Murray. As a textbook, it was spot on in covering the main material of the course, as one would expect, but as a primer on women’s issues around the world, one could not ask for a better overview of the pressures, problems and political land mines that women face every day, around the world, from Vietnam to Venezuela.

Murray breaks down the chapters by using the stages of life, from birth to death, and offers specific examples from her long years of experience in the field to discuss the lifelong discrimination and disruption women expect to find in their day to day living.

The most impressive aspect of Murray’s writing is her ability to address the universal aspects of those experiences, whether it be access to schooling or elder abuse. Each chapter helpfully offers a list of organizations which address these issues and the countries or regions in which they operate.

From Outrage to Courage is an excellent resource for anyone interested in women’s rights or causes and I highly recommend it to anyone who may be considering work, or research on any of the issues covered in the book.