“Teach a man how to treat a woman and her body and you have educated a generation.”- ASN

What I learned from this book is that educating men on family planning and how to love the women in their lives without pressuring them to have children in a multitude is as important as treating themselves and societies well with care. Teach a man how to properly care and treat a woman and her body and you have educated a generation and the future of society in a small but powerful way. ( )

Ms Gates does a perfect job of explaining her point of view without ever being elitist or condescending. I thought she related her POV with respect and intention. I agreed with her points and appreciated her examples and personal stories. There is much to be done by all of us. It made me wonder how these points can be shared without those in power feeling attacked or threatened. That is a key point that I wish was addressed but maybe that's for each of us to ponder. ( )

A great and informative read. ( )

Going into this book I didn't know much about Melinda Gates, or what her foundation did. All overly wealthy people seem to have foundations, so my base assumption would have been that they used it to distribute money to programs and people in need.

Boy was I wrong on that.

This book is a must read for anyone, no matter your sex/gender/lot in life, it's eye opening and empowering. While the title will lead you to believe that the target audience for this book is women, and that reading it will leave women empowered, that couldn't be further from the truth.

Melinda tells the story about her journey in empowering women and how it cascaded into changing the views/lives of men and women around the globe. From America to India, and every village in between, she shares stories of people that she admires, and how one idea led to large scale social change for many.

I adore Melinda's take on how to solve problems, and listen with the intent to understand. Each time she thinks she has a handle on a small problem, she discovers a much bigger picture that needs to be addressed. She is humble, and open to to understanding life from a different perspective. It's inspiring. The way she was able to continually tie so much back to family planning shocked me, but also made complete sense.

“…contraceptives are the greatest life-saving, poverty-ending, women-empowering innovation ever created.”

“When women can decide whether and when to have children, it saves lives, promotes health, expands education, and creates prosperity—no matter what country in the world you’re talking about.”

The story she is telling is laid out in a manner that makes it easy to follow and understand how she is who she is today. From her personal family background, to her struggles with the boys club. It was cool to listen to how she became a more confident and assertive version of herself and spread her own wings of empowerment.

So often people brush off items that aren't their problem, as "since I don't struggle with this, no one is anymore. It's history, a problem that has been solved." But that isn't true. Melinda points out so many areas that we are still working as a society to make better.

I leave this book with a new understanding of her foundation, and how much just listening can blossom a wave of change. I encourage you to read it. The audiobook was great, as she narrates it, and puts the emphasis in all the right places.

“And the starting point for human improvement is empathy. Everything flows from that. Empathy allows for listening, and listening leads to understanding. That’s how we gain a common base of knowledge. When people can’t agree, it’s often because there is no empathy, no sense of shared experience. If you feel what others feel, you’re more likely to see what they see. Then you can understand one another. Then you can move to the honest and respectful exchange of ideas that is the mark of a successful partnership. That’s the source of progress.”

( )

A moving book describing the amazing work being done by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Preventing HIV, supporting women in agriculture and delaying child marriages are just some of the areas the Foundation supports.

The novel delves into real stories of women impacted by the work (before & after), what the foundation is doing to support and ultimately why this work is necessary - to bring in the marginalized and empower women so we can all be contributing members of society.

Melinda is a wonderful storyteller - she is authentic, honest and candid. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking to learn from an inspiring women and interested in social justice work. ( )

Best book I've read this year. ( )

Melinda Gates not only has more money than most people, she also has more compassion and a better-developed sense of her duty to put that money to work to - truly - change the world.
I was skeptical about her perspective, her intent, and - again, truly - her heart. But not anymore.
This book is a manifesto, a set of bold statements about how important it is to affirm and empower women. Period. She talks about poverty, patriarchy, contraception, spirituality, and every other hard thing that so many other powerful people are inclined to talk around, rather than work through.
This book and these messages changed my mind about the difference that Melinda Gates and the foundation are making in the world. I stand with them in declaring that all lives have equal value. Do you? ( )

For a long time, I didn't read this book thinking it was just about their charity work. But I heard Melinda Gates interviewed by David Letterman on Netflix and was intrigued. It was an amazing, inspirational nonfiction about her personal life and how she has worked to bring women's rights to the forefront. It tugs you at your heart and I only wish all women were as equal as men in not only this country but all places around the world. ( )

Gates writes a stirring book filled with personal experiences and observations of poverty, inequality, and change. She's accumulated a vast and worthy net of professional colleagues that do great things in countries and cultures that oppress women. And your heart will, and should, break as you hear these stories of cultural norms.

This reads like a memoir more than a research book (which is fine) and I admire her open honesty, her ability to reason, her willingness to make changes herself, her thoughtfulness, and her vision of herself. * I agreed (and other stats agree) with her points about

-- women needing (being more powerful when allied with) other women
--cultures that empower, respect, and give women equal opportunities are better and stronger cultures than those who don't
--empathy is crucial in these conversations
--billionaires often do more harm than good with their donations (be educated on where you donate)
--the margins of society are where the greatest suffering occurs
--changes from within the culture are more effective than changes imposed from without (e.g. child brides in India)
--women, wherever they come from or are in their lives, have similar, deep' and worthwhile desires.

Women aside, as a background bonus, it also illustrates the brilliance of early Microsoft culture and the business ---as well as some of the few downsides. Another thing that I appreciated was her honest grappling with the Catholic doctrine with which she was raised. It was refreshing to read.

One of the few downsides, and I emphasize few, is that, in spite of her hyper-awareness of her privilege, she overlooks her own country in some areas (except for the birth control question---which I think she handled tactfully compared to some potentially politically inflammatory topics). For example, she talks about the need for paid maternity and paternity leave and says that women need to demand it. But how can you demand it if you're an illegal immigrant working at a factory and could easily get fired? Or a mother at McDonalds with a highschool education? She gives a brief nod to these in her "Me Too" chapter but demanding a benefit when you're desperately dependant on your paycheck is borderline impossible. It's easy if you're top of the line at Apple or a similar company.

My other issues were, 1) a couple of oversights in her chapter on birth control. If infiltrating the culture is more effective than changing the culture, why isn't there a greater stress on the changing of the male entitlement culture in third world countries? Being beaten by your husband for requesting a condom is a MALE issue and should be addressed. As she says later on, male allies are essential. And this is visible in multiple areas afterwards. I believe that there are better, cheaper ways to solve this issue. ** 2) I think it would have been worth looking into, and getting more personal about, microlending. But that is because I've heard some inspiring stories about that.

But, despite this, it was worthy piece of work that she should be proud of and I remain incredibly impressed with her and her husband (and think that Amazon could use some tips from them) and their valuable efforts.

Pro Tip: Don't read while pregnant. :)

*Meaning that she gets, unlike some other writers, that she has access to some privileges that others don't, as a white, female, married-to-Bill-Gates, educated American.
** See [b:The Heavens Are Open|50977612|The Heavens Are Open|Wendy Watson Nelson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568949811l/50977612._SX50_SY75_.jpg|73452732] ( )

Every female over the age of 10 should read this book and most males (some there's no hope for). "Read" audio book as part of a book club promotion. The book gave me goosebumps, made me sad, made me angry - it's nothing we didn't know or talk about in the 60's but to our shame, the problem was/has not been addressed, just continues and continues. Gates' reading adds to the book; her vulnerability and compassion do the same. I would give the book 10 stars if the rating went that high. Her idea on inclusion is interesting. Certainly most people feel like little islands. ( )

Melinda French Gates strongly makes the case that women who are treated equally and have access to equal opportunities, not only uplifts the women but society as a whole. Thanks to the the work and research of the Gates Foundation in places such as Africa and India, Melinda addresses the main topics of inequality and provides examples of how they can be addressed: family planning, work inequality, child marriage, access to contraceptives, and more. It's a compelling argument all around and an inspirational call to action. ( )

I appreciate the work that the Gate's Foundation does for the world and enjoyed the opportunity to read more about Melinda Gate's role in the organisation and view of the world. ( )

The Moment of Lift is a memoir of sorts, as well as an enlightening account showing the benefits to the mission of solving some of the world's large problems - hunger, poverty and pandemic among them - to be gained by empowering women.

Melinda Gates relates through a number of stories how she and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grew in understanding of the importance of empowering women. For Melinda, the stories are personal and one on one, and include experiences in her professional life before helping to lead the Foundation as well as her personal encounters with women who are experiencing some of the problems the Foundation seeks to help address. There are many touching moments to these stories that will leave you inspired.

Also interesting were the stories she relates of how within the Foundation there was pushback at first to the notion that "empowering women" was somehow a goal of the organization. You would expect that any organization with Bill Gates' name in it would be data driven, and it's interesting to read how listening well to the people in need (i.e. gathering data) really reinforced the centrality of empowering women to the goals they had set for themselves.

You will definitely be inspired by this book, but it is really a memoir. Meaning that Melinda doesn't attempt to layout tools for you to use, or specific needs for change that you can act on yourself. (She does discuss some of the problem areas in American life / work that need to be addressed.) Fortunately, if you Google "how to empower the women in your life" there are many suggestions you'll find, and after reading this book you'll likely be inspired to try some. ( )

This book is half an amazing story of the power of feminism philanthropy and half a Mickey Rooney - Judy Garland film. Hey kids, if we work together we can put on the play ourselves! Melinda Gates was born into a Catholic family with a homemaker mother and an aerospace engineer father. He always emphasized the importance of involving women in science. Melinda has an abundance of both self-confidence and competence and she is able to look at problems and assume she will be able to find solutions. Voila, she does. One feel-good accomplishment came when they were working to promote family planning in India. They wanted to find a way to encourage condom use among sex workers. When they met with groups of sex workers they found that the main problem the workers wanted to be solved was violence against them. If they tried to get their customers to use condoms they'd get beaten. They couldn't rely on the men to bring condoms, and if they kept condoms on themselves they would be stopped by police and raped and beaten by them because they assumed any woman carrying condoms was a sex worker so that's what she deserved. They instituted a system in which women could call a certain number and a group of women would rush to them to support them. It was so effective that often they could stop both police brutality and brutality by customers and this part of India showed a marked decrease in the spread of HIV. Bill and Melinda called the man they had left in charge of this project and were surprised to find that he had used some of his allotted money to establish places where workers could get together, drink tea and discuss. They'd had no intention of establishing tea rooms, but they knew enough to leave the money with people in the area who could see what was needed, and a way for women to communicate with each other is just what they needed. Confidence, competence and money go a long way. Surprisingly Melinda is still strongly Catholic, but she sees that having men in charge of women's bodies and supposedly celibate men giving advice on marriage and family is both ridiculous and unhelpful. She has no problem being both religious and strongly supportive of women's rights to their own lives and bodies.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is an extremely uplifting narrative where Gates provides many examples of women at the margins of society are empowered to seek equality and respect. Gates and her husband Bill started their foundation over 20 years ago. The primary goals are to enhance health care, reduce poverty and improve education in the developing world. Gates’ focus in this book is applying those goals to women and girls. Her philosophy is simple, if you lift up women, you lift up their families and their communities.
The book is partly biographical as Gates talks about her upbringing in Dallas Texas with parents who provided her with examples of equality, respect and pride. Her Catholic upbringing affects her morality regarding helping others but she does not spare criticism of the Church nor its stand on family planning or on allowing women priests. Her view is that any religion that is dominated or led by men does not believe that women who are lifted up are better off.

The many stories in the book deal with poor, illiterate, abused women and girls in the developing world. Her foundation works with locals who are well aware of the family situations, roadblocks and impediments that hold them back.
When a problem is identified, such as cutting girls, the team approach is to understand the issue completely by engaging the whole community in talking about the tradition, the purpose and the outcomes. The practice is ancient and has no apparent reason other than to keep girls chaste until marriage. A village in Senegal decided to abolish the practice once infections, pain, rationale were identified. The team was able to do this by engaging one or two women of influence and they in turn urged the end of the practice in their village and others.
This method is used in all of the programs the foundation supports such as education for girls, family planning, banking, sexual and physical abuse, female farmers, AIDS prevention, sex workers. Listening to the women and empowering them is a huge boost to their personal potential and their influence on their families. ( )

Remarkable. Highly recommended if you are, or know someone who is, a woman. ( )

First, I give this a 4.5 instead of a 5 because her actions are not as stated in the book when she gave the leader of India an award recently.
Throughout the book she points at him and his party as promoting bias against women's rights, what she is fighting for.

Other than that, the book is a good and detailed description of how the Gates Foundation zeroed in on how best to help poor people globally.

Certain paragraphs are very uplifting and dramatic.An example is the "I want a teacher" episode from pages 89 to 92 in the hardbound version.
The conclusion is well written, however it extends through the epilogue, so might be partially missed by the reader not expecting this to dribble on into that part.

In summary this is a motivating detailed account of how to start and focus your priorities to have the most affect in a philanthropic effort. It is also interesting since it is true and includes many memorable individuals, striving for a better life and better world. ( )

Brilliant concept which should be applauded but the presentation was too preachy for my taste ( )

Pretty good book about how empowering women can help in reducing poverty ( )

I'm so thankful for a friend recommending this book. I've heard of The Gates Foundation and of Melinda Gates, but I didn't have a great understanding about all the wonderful things they do. What really stuck out to me in this book is that Melinda is continually learning. Allowing people to tell them not just about their problems, but about the solutions they wanted and needed for these issues. The women she met in Malawi and India knew what could make their situations better, they often just needed support to put the solutions in to practice. Though it feels like an oxymoron, Melinda truly seems like a humble billionaire. I enjoyed hearing about her life before becoming Mrs. Bill Gates and about her father's job at NASA that inspired the title of the book. While listening to the book I realiezed my "world" view is more of a local view, but I realized I can do little things within my own community to help lift others up. ( )

I went into this book with the idea that it would be your typical feminist book that talks about empowering yourself, but was pleasantly surprised. The Moment of Lift is about meeting the need of women around the world and how to successfully accomplish that. Melinda isn’t on a high horse telling everyone that they’re wrong and that the only way we can fix things is her way. She opens the dialogue to everyone about their needs and how their foundation can help them meet those needs. In the book, it feels like Melinda wants her readers to understand that there are many ways of lifting women up, and that the only ones who truly understand what they need are the women she is trying to help. Listening to their stories is a huge part of this book.

Often, when organizations work with people from other countries, I see them try to “correct” things without any attempts at understanding that cultures motivations. I appreciated what Melinda said about not telling a culture that their practices and traditions are wrong. It is more important to understand why they do what they do and address the deeper issue. You won’t create change by alienating everyone by telling them they are wrong. Melinda includes many stories that demonstrate how beneficial it is to take a step back and listen to what the people you’re working with actually needs.

My favorite story in this book was about the community that came together to banish Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Rather than walking in to this community, the Gates foundation had local midwives talk to their communities about the health risks and then they listened to the counter argument from the community members. As it turns out, traditions are not always easy to break and are usually much more complicated than outsiders might think.

Though there are stories in this book that are hard to hear about because of their violent nature, but I am glad she included them because those stories deserve to be heard.

If you’re looking for a book that will offer insight to issues that women face around the world (that are often glossed over or completely ignored in the news), this is the book for you. It may also give you a new lens to look at your own community with. ( )

"Every society says its outsiders are the problem. But the outsiders are not the problem; the urge to create outsiders is the problem. Overcoming that urge is our greatest challenge and our greatest promise. It will take courage and insight, because the people we push to the margins are the ones who trigger in us the feelings we're afraid of."
Melinda Gates, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World ( )

I had high hopes for this book because I've been following the Gates Foundation and I know they do meaningful work. To be honest, the first few chapters turned me off because of the writing style - pedestrian at best. I was kind of embarrassed for Mrs. Gates. But then she started sharing her personal stories of adventures around the world and how they are representative of the way things are done in other countries. Not really a lot of new information for me, but her insights are raw and palpable.
“It’s the sign of a backward society—or a society moving backward—when decision are made for women by men.”
I started seeing that we all hold the power to enact change in our world, and I'm glad some people have lots of money to make it happen a little faster. She is an inspiration. ( )

Last week I praised a book that criticized billionaires and now I’m praising a book written by one of the biggest billionaires. Bill Gates did give a blurb for Winners Take All so in that regards it isn’t like this is by Bezos’ ex-wife.
The Moment of Lift is a quick read. Melinda Gates explains how their foundation started with no specific focus on gender equality, but soon realized how most of the problems they were trying to solve required women being involved. She tells stories about family planning projects in Africa, farming in Asia, women in tech in the US, girls education in Mexico, sex workers in India...many are heartbreaking but most have reasons to be optimistic. Melinda spends a chapter outlining why “billionaires solving problems” is problematic, peeks into her and Bill’s relationship, and her difficult fights with the Catholic Church. She comes from a devout family. ( )

I have to say that I was skeptical about this book. Melinda Gates is famous because, well, she's married to Bill Gates and in my mind that didn't really make her qualified to speak about the issues that women face around the world.

I was wrong. This book is really about stories of her own life, not only working as a woman at Microsoft, in a predominantly male-dominated business, but mostly what she has seen through her work with the Gates Foundation. The stories are powerful and moving and she tells them with humility, wisdom and tremendous empathy. The plight of women in parts of this world is horrifying and some of these stories will bring you to tears. But this book will also inspire you and, yes, lift you up with the hope that there are better times to come for women and all people in the world. ( )