Girl Rising

Karen and I were actually pretty appalled by a documentary film we saw last night that we had high hopes for. It is called "Girl Rising" and it concerns the need for all of us to commit ourselves to educating women around the world.

Why appalled? Because the answer to this problem of educating women seemed to be, according to the documentary, for all the women in the world to try harder, to be persistent, to defy authorities, and good things will happen. In other words, it is a hopelessly simplistic account of what needs to be done that omits all the complex economic, cultural, and religious forces that are preventing women from getting educated.

The film focuses on 7 or 8 girls around the world and their struggles to get an education. There are a lot reasons why having access to a good education is a daunting goal, including prejudices against educating girls, challenging economic circumstances, sheer apathy, and surprising ignorance about the benefits of securing education for women. But this film barely touches on these, and uses an exasperatingly arty approach that lengthens the film and limits its entertainment value. Most of all, we learn little about what is happening around the world to advance education for women. The film is so myopically mired in the individual lives of a few girls that we just can't get any sort of larger perspective on the subject. And somehow even the mini-portraits of these individual girls are surprsingly dull and drawn out.

This should have been a great film about an incredibly important subject, perhaps the biggest challenge currently facing the global community. But for enlightenment and understanding and even inspiration, don't turn to "Girl Rising." You will be frustrated and deeply disappointed.