Genre: Nonfiction
Length: 288 pages
Audiobook Length: 7 hours and 56 minutes
First Published: 2019
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Publisher’s Description
“How can we summon a moment of lift for human beings – and especially for women? Because when you lift up women, you lift up humanity.”
For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop keeping women down.
In this moving and compelling book, Melinda shares lessons she’s learned from the inspiring people she’s met during her work and travels around the world. As she writes in the introduction, “That is why I had to write this book―to share the stories of people who have given focus and urgency to my life. I want all of us to see ways we can lift women up where we live.”
Melinda’s unforgettable narrative is backed by startling data as she presents the issues that most need our attention―from child marriage to lack of access to contraceptives to gender inequity in the workplace. And, for the first time, she writes about her personal life and the road to equality in her own marriage. Throughout, she shows how there has never been more opportunity to change the world―and ourselves.
Writing with emotion, candor, and grace, she introduces us to remarkable women and shows the power of connecting with one another.
When we lift others up, they lift us up, too.
Quotes from The Moment of Lift
Being a feminist means believing that every woman should be able to use her voice and pursue her potential, and that women and men should all work together to take down the barriers and end the biases that still hold women back.
Gender bias does worldwide damage. It’s a cause of low productivity on farms. It’s a source of poverty and disease. It’s at the core of social customs that keep women down.
If you want to lift up humanity, empower women. It is the most comprehensive, pervasive, high-leverage investment you can make in human beings.
It’s the mark of a backward society – or a society moving backward – when decisions are made for women by men.
About Melinda Gates
Melinda Gates is the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic organization focuses on global health, global development and growth, education and policy advocacy. Before co-chairing the foundation,she worked at Microsoft, where she met her husband Bill Gates. She currently lives in Seattle, Washington.