Pulitzer Prize winners Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof visited this campus last year and they spoke about their critically important book, Half the Sky. In that book, they assert that the fundamental moral challenge of the 19th century was slavery; of the 20th century, it was totalitarianism; and for our century, it is oppression of girls and women around the world. Their book is a call to arms, to give women all over the world, women who are exactly like us except for the circumstances into which they were born, basic human rights.普利策奖的获得者伍洁芳和尼古拉斯?克里斯托夫2010年访问巴纳德学院的时候曾经提到过他们非常重要的一部著作《半边天》。书中说十九世纪最主要的道德挑战是奴隶制;二十世纪是集权主义;到了二十一世纪，则是全世界对女性的压制。这本书号召全世界的女性同胞武装起来——尤其是那些出生在和我们不同社会环境中的女性——为争取基本的人权而战斗。

　　Compared to these women, we are lucky. In America, as in the entire developed world, we are equals under the law. But the promise of equality is not equality. As we sit here looking at this magnificent blue-robed class, we have to admit something that’s sad but true: men run the world. Of 190 heads of 2 state, nine are women. Of all the parliaments around the world, 13% of those seats are held by women. Corporate America top jobs, 15% are women; numbers which have not moved at all in the past nine years. Nine years. Of full professors around the United States, only 24% are women.相比较而言我们是幸运的。美国和其他所有发达国家一样，在法律的保护下，我们都是平等的，但是承诺平等并不等同于真正得到了平等。即使现在坐在下面的各位，看看你的周围，我们不得不承认一个令人难过的事实：男性掌控着世界。两个州共计190名官员，只有9名女性;全世界的各国议会，只有13%的席位是女性;美国大公司的高层管理者，15%是女性;在全美国获得教授资格的人中，只有24%是女性。在过去的九年里，这些数字没有任何进步，九年啊。