This month’s Recommended Read is ‘The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World’, authored by the one and only Melinda French Gates.
I read the book soon after its release in 2019. I still have it knocking about and use extracts as reference points. The book is available on Audible, Kindle and in a number of languages making it very inclusive.
Through the chapters Melinda shares her early life, her love for computers, the early days at Microsoft; the fierce working culture and the concept of care in a workplace.
A large proportion of the book is devoted to equality, with especial focus on gender equality. She talks about her work around the world through the Foundation; the inspirational people she has met to stories of her own travels.
This is candid and inspiring book, written with a level of openness as she slowly opens you a small window into her personal life; the road to equality in her own marriage and rumbles in her then marriage, which she has since left.
In her closing ‘Epilogue’ she talks about her friend Anna, a friend she made during her stay in Tanzania and the special bond they shared. ‘It was two women from different worlds, meeting on the margins, and summoning a moment of lift’ (Gates 2019: 266). Melinda makes note of how her own personal struggles may appear to Anna and others, referring to herself as the ‘rich American lady’. However, one must remember your position in society does not mean you do not experience personal struggles. The book shares Anna story who had been struggling to meet her basic needs, inequality and crisis in her marriage, who with love and courage stood up to the tradition of her society and left her marriage.
The book covers a wide range of topics from child marriage, poverty, contraception, to gender inequality, urgency to tackle poverty, the gender pay gap in workplaces, backed up with data (…wouldn’t expect anything less).
The book reinforces the stance I regularly take within my work on gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) when I note: ‘how can we move forward, with half a generation left behind?’
Overall, this is a book of hope, insight and a life of service.
