An event I went to recently made me realize how truly lucky I am to be a woman.

Amy Brenneman: I attended an event last week called "Half the Sky Live." It was to celebrate International Women's Day, March 4. The program was sponsored by CARE and featured Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn, co-authors of "Half the Sky," a book that is changing my life and the lives of so many others.

In this blog I haven't endorsed many things. I find I'm using the blog more as a space to explore internal processes and the significance (or not!) of the small things in my life -- moments with children, moments in traffic, moments plucking my chin hairs -- in an effort to seek meaning that maybe resonates with others. But "Half the Sky" .... Wow. If you've read it, you know what I mean. If you haven't? Run, don't walk.

Kristoff and WuDunn's subtitle says it all: "Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide." Their thesis -- and the basis of this new "movement," as they call it (I don't disagree) -- is that the solution to the world's poverty and warring is in the elevation and inclusion of women in all parts of society. Scourges like maternal mortality, exclusion from education, violence towards women and sex trafficking must be eradicated in order for cultures to have sustainable economies, social equality and lasting peace.

I used to think that these issues were noble, but a bit sentimental and certainly secondary to the "real" issues (such as military interventions and market economies). Not anymore. Women's well-being is now understood to be at the center of solving these issues -- and a predictor of the stability of a society. In addition to looking at military maneuvers, army generals now routinely look at the number of girls who attend school as a predictor of the stability of a region. The percentage of women in government is used to predict the stability of a nation. And economists have determined that, without a doubt, the best way to eradicate poverty -- dollar for dollar -- is to invest in a young girl's education.

I myself have become obsessed with micro-loans. I can't get enough of these stories, and "Half the Sky" is full of them. The woman in Burundi who, at 35, had never handled money or worked outside of the home -- and who watched her husband drink the family's meager living away in the local bar? This woman joined a local women's collective and received a $2 loan to grow a larger field of crops. She grew a bumper crop that year, made $7, paid the loan back (with interest) and took out another. Then she started a banana-beer business, which is making an ongoing profit.

Now, I come from a long line of addicts and alcoholics. Not a great legacy, mind you, but mixed into that is a lot of recovery, too. Anyone who knows alcoholic (or other dysfunctional) family dynamics knows that sometimes it takes just one person changing -- one person getting healthier and stepping outside of the cycle of dysfunction -- to change the entire family system. I think of that often while reading these micro-loan stories. The reverberations of these women's actions are profound: Their husbands have newfound respect for them, so if there has been domestic violence, it often stops. The family now has money to send its daughters to school. Those daughters in turn have fewer children. Because there are fewer births, there is less of a chance of maternal mortality. And on and on and on.

Buddhist tradition talks about lucky births. As a woman born into a family with enough money and an abundance of love, I have been luckier than most. These women were not so lucky. And yet they were born into an era when "Half the Sky" stories are capturing the world's attention and people like me are moved to act. These stories contain so much suffering -- but in equal measure, so much hope. Check them out. You just might recognize yourself in their stories, from half a world away. For more information go to HalfTheSkyMovement.org or CARE.org.

Amy Brenneman is an award-winning producer and actress whose TV credits include "NYPD Blue," "Judging Amy" (which she also created and produced) and, currently, ABC's "Private Practice." She works with the nonprofit groups Healthy Child/Healthy World, The Feminist Majority and the Cornerstone Theater Company, of which she's a founding member. She is mother to Charlotte and Bodhi and wife to filmmaker Brad Silberling. They live in the San Fernando Valley, the most hip place to be in all of Los Angeles.