women hold up half the sky

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the assertion that women are essential, co-equal contributors to society and that their empowerment and participation is not a marginal concern but foundational to the functioning and flourishing of the whole; the phrase derives from a Maoist-era Chinese saying attributed to Mao Zedong — women hold up half the sky — which, whatever its ideological context, became a powerful expression of women's indispensability; Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn used it as the title of their 2009 book on the oppression and empowerment of women in the developing world, bringing the phrase into global gender-equality discourse; it argues against the marginalisation of women's issues as special interest concerns and insists that gender equality is a prerequisite for any genuinely inclusive vision of human progress