The Moment of Lift
It’s Women’s History Month and if you’re looking for a great way to celebrate, we highly recommend reading The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World by Melinda Gates. In her book, Melinda shares what she’s learned about where women around the world face the greatest obstacles to equality as well as inspiring stories of individuals and organizations working to make positive change.
It feels daunting to read about the struggles women face around the world. How do you ever tackle vast levels of inequality? Despite the simplicity of some of the solutions, the challenge lies in changing cultures and biases to be open to resources that empower women. We truly cannot achieve the best our societies are capable of until everyone has a voice. As Melinda puts it:
As women gain rights, families flourish, and so do societies. That connection is built on a simple truth: Whenever you include a group that’s been excluded, you benefit everyone. And when you’re working globally to include women and girls, who are half of every population, you’re working to benefit all members of every community. Gender equity lifts everyone.
From high rates of education, employment, and economic growth to low rates of teen births, domestic violence, and crime—the inclusion and elevation of women correlate with the signs of a healthy society. Women’s rights and society’s health and wealth rise together.
As Melinda talks about each area of inequality women experience around the world, she shares incredible and inspiring stories of people and groups working delicately and tirelessly to shift their own cultures towards empowering women. One story in particular highlights how a simple practice with life-saving effects can be met with resistance because of cultural norms and traditions. In the “global epicenter of newborn and maternal deaths” in India, an organization worked to train community health workers in safe newborn practices. One new worker, Ruchi, was called in to help a first-time mother who had fainted during childbirth. Ruchi arrived the morning after the birth and found the mother and baby unconscious, yet surrounded by terrified family members. They were afraid the mother and child had been possessed by an evil spirit. Ruchi found that both were alive, but the baby was dangerously cold. She asked female family members to give the baby boy skin-to-skin care. No one would. Despite severe backlash Ruchi could experience if it didn’t work, she tucked the newborn baby boy into her sari against her own skin, covered his head and watched his temperature slowly rise. He and his mother survived thanks to Ruchi and other incredibly brave people who worked to introduce this and other simple life-saving practices into a resistant culture.
There are many stories in this book that will make you weep, but also many stories that will make your heart burst in triumph. By the end, you’ll be so ready to do something to help. Thankfully, Melinda lists all of the organizations she talks about in the book and invites you to “learn how to use your voice to advance their work.” All of the sales of this book go to these organizations.
Empathy is the key to powerful change and in order to develop that level of empathy, we have to understand others and try to imagine what our lives would be like without the tools and resources we have that give us options and opportunities. The Moment of Lift is full of heart-breaking, eye-opening and inspiring stories that are an urgent call to empower women in every way and in every place we can. Reading this book has taught us that as we uplift and empower women, it lifts everyone.