The Moment of Lift

The Moment of Lift Plot Summary

Introduction

In a remote village in Malawi, a young woman named Patricia spent Christmas Day planting groundnuts in her small farm plot while others celebrated. With exacting precision, she positioned each seed in perfect double rows, 75 centimeters between rows, 10 centimeters between plants. Her dedication seemed extraordinary, yet for years her painstaking work had yielded little reward. Despite her efforts, Patricia couldn't afford school fees for her children or even basic cooking pots for her home. Her story encapsulates the central message of Melinda Gates' work: when we remove the barriers that keep women like Patricia from reaching their full potential, we lift up not just women, but entire communities and societies. Melinda Gates has traveled the world for over twenty years, meeting women whose struggles and triumphs have shaped her understanding of global inequality. Through these encounters, she discovered that gender inequality is at the root of nearly every problem she was trying to solve through philanthropy. From maternal and infant mortality to poverty, from educational barriers to workplace discrimination, the status of women proved to be the key indicator of a society's health. This realization transformed her approach to philanthropy and her personal mission. Through intimate stories of the women who changed her perspective, Gates reveals how empowering women is not just a matter of justice but the most effective means of creating lasting, positive change in the world.

Chapter 1: Finding Her Voice: From Computer Scientist to Philanthropist

In the fall of 1995, shortly after discovering she was pregnant and just before departing on a trip to China with her husband Bill, Melinda Gates made a decision that would begin to shape her future path. After returning from China, she informed Bill that she wouldn't be going back to work at Microsoft after having their baby. Though she loved her career, she felt she couldn't balance the demands of her high-pressure job with the kind of family life she envisioned. This was the first major crossroads in her journey from technology executive to global philanthropist. Melinda's path began in Dallas, Texas, where she grew up in a Catholic family with parents who emphasized education and service. After attending Ursuline Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school, she earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and a master's in business from Duke University. Her professional life started at Microsoft, where she rose from product manager to general manager of information products over nine years. The culture was competitive and often confrontational, but she thrived by developing her own leadership style that valued collaboration and openness. When Warren Buffett announced in 2006 that he was giving the bulk of his fortune to the Gates Foundation, doubling its endowment, Melinda experienced another defining moment. At a press conference with Bill and Warren to announce the gift, she found herself speaking passionately about how the foundation would use the funds to advance global health and development. "I honestly hadn't realized how passionate I was about the work until I heard myself talking about it in public," she writes. She recognized that the foundation needed to be an equal partnership, and she needed to embrace a more public role as co-chair. Over time, Melinda's philanthropic focus began to crystallize around women's empowerment. The turning point came during a trip to India where she met a woman named Meena who was caring for a newborn. When Melinda asked if she wanted more children, Meena looked down in silence before admitting she didn't. "We're very poor... I don't know how I'm going to feed this child," Meena said, before making a heartbreaking request: "Please take him home with you." This encounter revealed to Melinda that it wasn't enough to help mothers deliver safely – they needed the ability to decide when and whether to have children at all. As she traveled to communities across the developing world, Melinda consistently heard women asking for access to contraceptives. In Malawi, women told her they would walk ten miles to health clinics not knowing if birth control would be available when they arrived. In Niger, a mother of six named Sadi explained, "When you don't do family planning, everybody in the family suffers." These voices transformed Melinda's understanding of what women needed most. In 2012, she stepped into the spotlight as a public advocate for family planning at an international summit in London, helping secure commitments of $2 billion to expand contraceptive access to millions of women. What began as an education in family planning expanded into a comprehensive understanding of the barriers women face worldwide. "If you want to lift up humanity, empower women," Melinda realized. "It is the most comprehensive, pervasive, high-leverage investment you can make in human beings." This insight became the guiding principle of her philanthropy and her personal mission.

Chapter 2: The Revelation of Maternal Health

On a trip to India, Melinda Gates encountered Vishwajeet Kumar and Aarti Singh, a husband and wife team working to save newborn lives in Uttar Pradesh, one of India's poorest states. In rural villages, newborn mortality rates were staggering, with thousands of babies dying in their first days of life. The couple's program, called Saksham (meaning "empowerment"), was achieving remarkable results not through expensive technology, but through simple practices: immediate breastfeeding, keeping babies warm, and cutting umbilical cords with sterilized tools. The key to their success wasn't just the medical interventions but their approach to cultural change. "Their cup is not empty; you can't just pour your ideas into it," Vishwajeet told Melinda. "Their cup is already full, so you have to understand what is in their cup." The team spent months learning about local beliefs and practices before suggesting changes. When villagers resisted immediate breastfeeding because tradition dictated waiting three days, the team pointed to examples in nature: "When we try to milk a cow and it doesn't express milk, we make the calf suckle her to get the milk to let down, so why don't you try the same with your baby?" This experience revealed something profound to Melinda: technology and science alone couldn't solve global health challenges. Delivery systems that respect cultural contexts were equally crucial. "We have to keep working on innovation in products, in science and technology, but we have to work with the same passion on innovation in delivery systems as well," she concluded. This balanced approach became central to the Gates Foundation's strategy. Melinda witnessed the impact of this philosophy in action when she visited Ruchi, a community health worker in Shivgarh. Ruchi had saved a newborn's life by using skin-to-skin care, placing the hypothermic baby against her own bare skin when the infant's family refused to touch him for fear of evil spirits. As the baby's temperature rose and he began to cry, the entire village witnessed the power of this simple technique. This story spread through neighboring communities, changing attitudes and saving lives. The lessons of maternal health extended beyond specific interventions to reveal deeper truths about poverty and exclusion. In one of her most moving encounters, Melinda met Hans Rosling, a renowned global health expert who shared a heartbreaking story from his time as a doctor in Mozambique. A woman had died during childbirth in his care after an obstructed labor. When Hans visited her village afterward, he expected anger but instead found gratitude. The villagers thanked him not for trying to save her life, but for arranging to return her body to the village for burial. "We never expected anyone to show such respect for us poor farmers here in the forest," they told him. This story illuminated the true meaning of extreme poverty for Melinda: "Poverty is not being able to protect your family. Poverty is not being able to save your children when mothers with more money could." She recognized that the strongest instinct of a mother is to protect her children, making poverty "the most disempowering force on earth." Empowering mothers to protect their children became the fundamental goal of her work in global health. The maternal health journeys also revealed how exclusion creates suffering. "In societies of deep poverty, women are pushed to the margins," Melinda observed. When communities push any group out, especially women, they create a crisis that can only be reversed by bringing outsiders back in. The solution to poverty and almost any social ill lies in including the excluded, going to the margins of society, and bringing everybody back in.

Chapter 3: Family Planning: A Catalyst for Women's Empowerment

In a small hut in a village in India, Melinda Gates met Meena, a young mother holding her newborn son. Their conversation about maternal health took an unexpected turn when Gates asked if Meena wanted more children. After a long silence, Meena looked up with anguish in her eyes: "The truth is no, I don't want to have any more kids. We're very poor. I don't know how I'm going to feed this child. I have no hopes for educating him." Then came words that shook Gates to her core: "The only hope I have for this child's future is if you'll take him home with you." When Gates declined, Meena pointed to her two-year-old son and said, "Please take him, too." This devastating encounter became a turning point in Gates' understanding of women's needs. She realized that helping mothers deliver safely wasn't enough – women needed control over when and whether to have children at all. Everywhere she traveled, from India to Malawi to Niger, women were asking for contraceptives. In health clinics, they stood in long lines, often walking miles with no guarantee that birth control would be available when they arrived. These women weren't making abstract choices about reproductive rights; they were making desperate calculations about survival. In Niger, Gates met Adissa, a 42-year-old mother who had been married at 14, given birth to ten children, and lost four. After getting an IUD, she faced suspicion from her husband and sister-in-law. "I'm tired," she told them simply. When Gates asked why she had decided to get birth control, Adissa replied with stark clarity: "When I had two kids, I could eat. Now, I cannot." She received the equivalent of just over a dollar a day from her husband to care for the entire family. "When you can't take care of your children," Adissa warned, "you're just training them to steal." Despite the clear need, family planning had become politicized and neglected as a global health priority. In 2012, Gates made the difficult decision to become a public advocate, co-sponsoring a global family planning summit in London. This meant taking a position that conflicted with the Catholic Church's teaching against contraception – a challenging step for someone raised in the faith. "Can you take actions in conflict with a teaching of the Church and still be part of the Church?" she asked priests and nuns she'd known since childhood. Their guidance reassured her: standing up for women's access to contraceptives aligned with the Church's teaching of love for one's neighbor. The summit secured unprecedented commitments of $2 billion to make contraceptives available to 120 million more women by 2020. Gates emphasized that this wasn't about population control or abortion, but about giving women the tools to decide for themselves when to have children. The evidence was overwhelming: when women can plan their pregnancies, maternal and infant mortality drops, education levels rise, and families escape poverty. In fact, no country in the last fifty years has emerged from poverty without expanding access to contraceptives. For Gates, the moral imperative was clear. When a woman in poverty who wants to time and space her pregnancies asks for contraceptives, denying her request means imposing unnecessary suffering. "To me," she writes, "that aligns with Christ's teaching to love my neighbor." By empowering women to make their own reproductive choices, Gates discovered, we unleash their potential to transform not just their own lives, but their families, communities, and nations.

Chapter 4: Breaking Barriers Through Education

In Kanpur, India, a 10-year-old girl named Sona approached a visiting health official and handed him a toy parrot she had crafted from trash. Looking him directly in the eyes, she made a simple request: "I want a teacher." Sona lived in one of India's lowest castes, in a community where people picked through garbage for a living, surrounded by six feet of trash. Despite her dire circumstances, she recognized education as her path out of poverty and had the courage to ask for what she needed. Her bold request led to government registration for her village, entitling all children there to schooling. Sona's story exemplifies the transformative power of girls' education, which research consistently shows delivers extraordinary benefits. When girls attend school, they experience greater literacy, higher wages, faster income growth, and more productive farming. Their communities see reduced rates of child marriage, delayed first births, better spacing between pregnancies, and improved child survival. In fact, half the gains in child survival over the past two decades can be attributed to mothers having gone to school. A mother with education is more than twice as likely to send her own children to school, creating a virtuous cycle across generations. The obstacles to girls' education vary across regions but share common roots in gender bias. In Guinea, just one in four girls is enrolled in secondary school, compared to almost 40 percent of boys. In Afghanistan, only about a third of girls attend secondary school, while nearly 70 percent of boys do. Economic pressures force many families to prioritize boys' education, believing girls' primary value lies in marriage and childbearing. Political and religious extremists often specifically target girls' schools, as demonstrated by groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria, whose name literally means "Western education is forbidden." One of the most powerful voices challenging these barriers is Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 at age 15 for advocating girls' education in Pakistan. Nine months after the attack, she addressed the United Nations: "Let's pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world." Today, Malala's foundation supports education activists worldwide, from Nigeria to Brazil to her home country of Pakistan. In Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) has pioneered an approach that has dramatically increased girls' education rates. When BRAC began building schools in the 1980s, less than 2 percent of Bangladeshi girls reached fifth grade. BRAC required at least 70 percent of students in their schools to be girls, hired only female teachers from the community, adapted school schedules to accommodate farming seasons, and provided all materials free of charge. When religious extremists burned the schools, BRAC rebuilt them. Today, Bangladesh has more girls in high school than boys. Perhaps most remarkable is the story of Kakenya Ntaiya, who defied centuries of Maasai tradition in Kenya. At 13, she struck an unprecedented bargain with her father: she would submit to female genital cutting, but only if he allowed her to continue her education instead of marrying the man she had been engaged to since age 5. After completing high school, she secured a college scholarship in the United States but needed her village to fund her plane ticket. Though elders initially dismissed the opportunity as wasted on a girl, Kakenya persisted, promising to return and help her community. She not only earned her undergraduate degree but completed a doctorate in education. When she returned, she founded the Kakenya Center for Excellence, which reaches girls at the age when they're typically pulled from school for marriage. Parents who send their daughters there must agree they won't undergo cutting or be married while still in school. The most profound transformation that comes through education, Melinda Gates observed, is how it changes a girl's self-image. "A girl learns she is not who she's been told she is. She is the equal of anyone, and she has rights she needs to assert and defend." This internal revolution enables girls to reject the limitations society imposes and begin authoring their own futures – the first essential step toward broader social change.

Chapter 5: The Silent Inequality of Unpaid Work

In a small family compound in Tanzania, Melinda Gates and her teenage daughter Jenn spent several days living with Anna and Sanare, a Maasai couple. They joined Anna in her daily routine – chopping firewood with dull machetes, walking thirty minutes to fetch water, building fires, preparing meals, and washing dishes late into the night. Anna was in motion for seventeen hours each day, shouldering a burden of unpaid labor that was unevenly distributed between her and her husband. This unequal division of household work wasn't just affecting Anna's daily life; it was limiting her future dreams. When Gates asked what she would do if she had more time, Anna spoke of starting a chicken business and selling eggs in Arusha. The income could transform her family's circumstances, but her relentless household duties made this impossible. This reality extends far beyond Tanzania. On average, women around the world spend more than twice as many hours as men on unpaid work. In India, women spend 6 hours daily on unpaid labor while men spend less than 1 hour. In the United States, women average more than 4 hours of unpaid work daily compared to men's 2.5 hours. Over a lifetime, this disparity translates to women doing seven years more unpaid work than men – roughly the time it takes to complete a bachelor's and master's degree combined. This imbalance creates a barrier to women's advancement in education, income, and leadership. The gender gap in unpaid work remained largely invisible to economists for decades. They didn't count cooking, cleaning, and caregiving as work – even though these tasks were essential to making all other economic activity possible. It took pioneers like economist Marilyn Waring to challenge this blind spot. Her groundbreaking 1988 book, "If Women Counted," calculated that if you hired workers at market rates to do all women's unpaid work, it would constitute the largest sector of the global economy. "Men won't easily give up a system in which half the world's population works for next to nothing," Waring wrote. Gradually, governments began to measure unpaid work, revealing its economic significance. Economist Diane Elson developed the "3 Rs" framework to address the disparity: recognize unpaid work by counting the hours; reduce those hours through technologies like cookstoves or washing machines; and redistribute the remaining work more equitably between men and women. When women can reduce their unpaid work from five hours to three hours daily, their participation in paid work increases by about 20 percent – providing income, independence, and power. Gates reflects candidly on the imbalance of unpaid work in her own marriage with Bill. Despite having resources for childcare, she still found herself the default "time cop" managing family logistics. When their daughter Jenn started kindergarten at a school 40 minutes away, Gates complained about the driving time, and Bill volunteered to handle some of the commute. His participation sparked a chain reaction: "When we saw Bill driving," one mother told Gates, "we went home and said to our husbands, 'Bill Gates is driving his child to school; you can, too.'" Similarly, Gates established a household rule that "nobody leaves the kitchen until Mom leaves the kitchen," ensuring cleaning duties were shared. The most profound insight Gates gained about unpaid work is that the issue isn't just practical but relational. When household labor is divided strictly along gender lines, couples lose opportunities for partnership and connection. "If you rigidly divide the duties," she writes, "then you're cutting back on what you share, and that can hurt the partnership." The goal isn't perfect mathematical equality in tasks, but developing a flow where both partners acknowledge family needs and make plans to address them together. This approach strengthens relationships while distributing burdens more fairly. The challenge of balancing unpaid work extends beyond individual households to societal structures and expectations. Creating workplaces compatible with family responsibilities remains essential for true gender equality. As Gates concludes, "We're quick to criticize gender injustice when we see it around the world. We also need to see it where most of us feel it and can do something about it – in the places where we work."

Chapter 6: Fighting Child Marriage and Gender Bias

Nearly twenty years ago, at a train station in India, Melinda Gates met a school head who was unusually agitated. "I'm sorry I'm so distressed," the woman explained. "I just got back from rescuing a girl whose family was selling her into prostitution." The child was a bride who had been given in a forced marriage, and when her family couldn't provide additional dowry money, her husband had begun beating her and planned to sell her. "It happens all the time," the school head explained matter-of-factly. This was Gates' first encounter with the devastating reality of child marriage, a practice that creates a power imbalance so vast that abuse becomes inevitable. Child brides lose their families, friends, education, and any chance for advancement. Even at the age of 10 or 11, they're expected to take on household duties and soon after, motherhood. The consequences are dire: girls who give birth before 18 face much higher risks of death in childbirth, and their babies are less likely to survive. During a visit to Ethiopia, Gates met with married girls who were so small they looked like "little fragile baby birds." One girl, Selam, described how at age 11, she was helping her mother prepare for what she thought was a party, only to discover it was her own wedding. She tried to escape, but her parents pulled her back and made her stand silently next to her husband for the ceremony. Afterward, she left her childhood home to move in with strangers and take on lifelong household duties. The causes of child marriage are complex. In cultures where a girl's family pays a dowry, marrying her off young reduces the payment. When a family receives money for a daughter's marriage, they have one fewer mouth to feed. Parents often believe early marriage protects their daughters from sexual assault, preserving their "honor" and marriageability. As Gates observed, "It's a heartbreaking reality that girls are forced into the abusive situation of child marriage to protect them from other abusive situations." One of the most effective approaches to ending harmful practices like child marriage comes from Molly Melching's organization Tostan in Senegal. Rather than condemning traditions from the outside, Tostan facilitators live in villages for three years, guiding community-wide conversations about values and rights. They begin by asking villagers to envision their ideal community, then explore topics like health, literacy, and human rights. These discussions gradually lead communities to question practices that violate their own deepest values. In one village, after months of dialogue about female genital cutting (commonly practiced before child marriage), community members began sharing painful stories about girls who had died from hemorrhaging or suffered difficult births because of cutting. As they recognized that all girls have a right to health, they decided to abandon the practice. Crucially, they recognized that no single village could change alone, so local religious leaders convinced surrounding communities to join them. This approach works because it's built on empathy rather than judgment. "Outrage can save one girl or two," Melching told Gates. "Only empathy can change the system." When communities challenge their own harmful practices through open dialogue, change becomes sustainable. In villages where Tostan works, women now have more voice in decisions, men share household chores, and communities have committed to ending both female genital cutting and child marriage. Gates came to see that these harmful practices persist not from malice but from constrained choices within deeply unequal systems. Change requires addressing both immediate harms and underlying biases. "When a community denies its women the right to decide whether and when and whom to marry," she writes, "the universal values of human rights are not honored." Supporting community-led movements to recognize women's full humanity becomes not just a matter of cultural respect but of fundamental justice.

Chapter 7: Creating an Inclusive Workplace Culture

When Melinda Gates arrived at Microsoft in the late 1980s as part of the company's first MBA class, she immediately noticed the intensity of the workplace culture. During her orientation, she watched as a male colleague engaged in a heated, almost combative exchange with a vice president. "Wow," she thought, "is this how you have to be to do well here?" The environment was brash, argumentative, and competitive, with employees fighting strenuously to defend every point and piece of data. Meetings felt like dress rehearsals for strategy reviews with Bill Gates. If you didn't argue forcefully, people assumed you weren't smart, didn't know your numbers, or lacked passion. A year and a half into her tenure, despite loving the work and opportunities, Gates considered quitting. The culture felt draining and inauthentic to her natural style. Before resigning, however, she had an epiphany: "Maybe, before I leave this amazing place, I should see if I can find a way to do all the things that are part of the culture—stand up for myself, know the facts, have a spirited debate—but do it in my own style." Rather than continuing to mimic the dominant male approach, she decided to be authentic and seek out others who wanted to work similarly. Gates began by connecting with other women at Microsoft, particularly Charlotte Guyman, with whom she formed an instant bond. They collaborated on projects without concern for who received credit, focused solely on achieving results. She also found supportive male colleagues like John Neilson, who shared her more empathetic approach. The breakthrough came when Patty Stonesifer became her boss and role model. Under Stonesifer's leadership, Gates found a team where people could be honest about strengths and weaknesses, admit mistakes, and support rather than undermine each other. "Working for Patty, I began to develop a style that was really my own, and I stopped suppressing myself to fit in," Gates writes. "That's when I fully realized that I could be myself and be effective." As Gates rose to manage 1,700 people, she attracted talented employees from across the company who preferred her collaborative approach. She discovered that by trying to conform to the dominant culture, she had actually been reinforcing the very environment that made her feel like an outsider. When she created space for a different way of working, others eagerly joined her. This lesson extended beyond Microsoft as Gates observed how workplace cultures often exclude or disadvantage women. The tech industry presents a particularly troubling case. Despite the exciting and lucrative opportunities it offers, women's participation has declined since Gates' college years. When she graduated in 1987, women earned 35 percent of computing degrees in the United States; today, it's just 19 percent. Similarly, women comprise only a quarter of the tech workforce and hold just 15 percent of technical positions. In venture capital, which funds tech startups, only 2 percent of partners are women, and only 2 percent of funding goes to women-founded companies. These disparities matter beyond issues of fairness. As technology increasingly shapes our world, Gates argues that diversity in tech is essential for creating products and services that work for everyone. She points to research by Joy Buolamwini, who found that facial recognition software had error rates as high as 35 percent for darker-skinned women compared to less than 1 percent for light-skinned men. "Algorithmic bias," Buolamwini warned, "can spread bias on a massive scale." Gates advocates for workplace cultures that not only include women but accommodate the full range of human needs and experiences. This includes policies like paid family leave, which the United States still doesn't guarantee nationally. "Today in the US, we're sending our daughters into a workplace that was designed for our dads," she observes, "set up on the assumption that employees had partners who would stay home to do the unpaid work of caring for family." Creating inclusive workplaces requires both structural changes and personal courage. Gates reflects on her own journey to find her voice, noting that "being yourself sounds like a saccharine prescription for how to make it in an aggressive culture. But it's not as sweet as it sounds. It means not acting in a way that's false just to fit in." When women can be authentic at work, they improve the culture for everyone, creating environments where all employees can contribute their unique talents and perspectives.

Summary

Throughout her journey from Microsoft executive to global philanthropist, Melinda Gates discovered that empowering women is the most direct path to improving humanity's condition. The evidence spans continents and contexts: when women control their own bodies through access to contraceptives, entire families thrive. When girls receive education, communities transform. When women farmers get equal resources, yields increase and hunger decreases. When women participate equally in the workplace, innovation and prosperity follow. Each example demonstrates that gender equality isn't merely a matter of fairness—it's the most effective strategy for addressing the world's most pressing challenges. The ultimate insight Gates offers transcends even the powerful case for equality. "Equality without connection misses the whole point," she writes. The supreme goal is not simply equal status but human connection across all divides. When we recognize our shared humanity and tear down the barriers that separate us, we create the conditions for everyone to flourish. This is the true "moment of lift"—when we rise together, seeing ourselves in others and others in ourselves. As Gates learned from women around the world, from sex workers in India to peace activists in Liberia, transformation begins when we let our hearts break open to others' suffering and commit to action. The path forward requires both courage and collaboration, as we work to create a world where no one is excluded, everyone belongs, and everyone is loved.

About Author

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Melinda French Gates

Melinda French Gates is a philanthropist, businesswoman, and global advocate for women and girls. For over 25 years, Melinda has led efforts to unlock a healthier, more prosperous, more equal future. Today, she heads Pivotal, an organization she formed in 2015 that works to accelerate the pace of progress and advance women’s power and influence in the U.S. and around the world. Previously, she founded and co-chaired the Gates Foundation, where, for more than two decades, she set the direction and priorities of the world’s largest philanthropy. Melinda is also the author of the bestselling book The Moment of Lift and the creator of Moment of Lift Books, an imprint publishing original nonfiction by visionaries working to unlock a more equal world. Melinda grew up in Dallas, Texas and attended Duke University, where she received a bachelor's degree in computer science and economics and an MBA. She spent the first decade of her career developing multimedia products at Microsoft before leaving the company to focus on her family and philanthropic work. Melinda has three children—Jenn, Rory, and Phoebe—and lives in Seattle, Washington.

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