Questions in between pages

How long does it take you to accept how your society works? How quickly must you grow up, depending on your situation? What will you be willing to give up in order to survive? Is there always hope? This are some of the many, many questions that Sold by Patricia McCormick has pressed upon me.

In Sold, 13 year old Lakshmi had been living in the mountains with her mother, baby brother, and step father. They were poor and her father gambled away all her money. Once she gets her first 'blood', she slowly but surely begins learning the true way her society works. How you may never look a man in the eye, or how once you are married you may only eat once your husband has had his fill. Or how if he turns to you in the night, you must give yourself to him in hopes you will bear him a son. Even Lakshmi's stepfather describes the difference between a daughter and a son in this way: "A son is always a son. But a girl is like a goat. Good as long as she gives you milk and butter. But not worth crying over when it's time to make a stew."

After Lakshmi's sudden brisk into the confined world of Nepali womanhood, with her family in debt, her stepfather sells her to become a maid in the city. Or so she believes- after a long week of traveling, she realizes that she has been sold into prostitution.

She cannot leave until she pays off her debt. At first she is overcome by shock, and she tries to escape, but is given drugs and is confined to her room for a room so men can come to her. After she is realeased because they "cannot get a good price for her because she is no longer a virgin," she makes life changing decisions. Must I give up my naive ways in order for men to come to me so I can pay off my debt? Will I face the reality of my situation and find a way out?

I absolutely hate jobs that objectify women (Prostitution, stripping, etc), but what's worse is to watch girls my age so such things. In this book, girls who are fourteen or so are sexualizing themselves for men three times their age. And do they have a choice? Certainly not- they cannot leave until they've paid off their debt, which could take years. There's one chapter where another working girl is explaining to Lakshmi her techniques to make men choose you; Tell the customers that you are twelve. If an old man is at the door, bat your eyes and act your part as a little girl. Flick the ends of your shawl in a come-closer gesture and it will bring the shy men to your bed. Draw your shawl to your chin, bend your neck like a peacock and it will bring the older men to your bed.

It's heartbreaking to watch these girls be sexualized and snatched of their innocence. In other parts of the world, these girls would be expected to act as children- to hang out with their friends, to go to school, to learn. Why does their society work this way? Why must women, and in this case girls, be treated as property and entertainment?

Obviously, the calling to the social action in this book are the horrible accounts of sexual slavery in the story. But there is more to it than that- within this huge issue, there are smaller ideas embedded in. How does this affect the girls who are experiencing these heartbreaking struggles? Are they traumatized later in life? How do they cope? How do they find a way out?