The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World

by Melinda French Gates

It took us years to learn that contraceptives are the greatest life-saving, poverty-ending, women-empowering innovation ever created.

“If you don’t set your own agenda, somebody else will.” If I didn’t fill my schedule with things I felt were important, other people would fill my schedule with things they felt were important.

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.

If you want to lift up humanity, empower women. It is the most comprehensive, pervasive, high-leverage investment you can make in human beings.