Review: The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World

The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World by Melinda Gates
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are three different themes to this book that I noticed, each part interesting in its own right. The first was Gates’ review of the state of the developing world regarding women, in terms of rights, work, and future. The story here is that the developed world tends to be helping the developing world, sometimes by supporting it, and sometimes by leaving aspects to work themselves out. The last part of the book tended more to a theme of the state of affairs for women in the developed world, with topics such as glass ceilings, equality, and the like. The third theme, which was repeated throughout the book, was Gates’ personal story, her background, her efforts with her foundation to investigate and solve some of the problems discussed throughout the book. I felt that this aspect of the book – Gates’ story of her childhood, her career at Microsoft, and her life as the richest woman in the world, was quite interesting. Gates tells of her parent’s lives and her upbringing, as well as her career at Microsoft as an early MBA hire, and her dates with billg. And she describes how she lives now, including how the Gates’ children attended school using Melinda’s maiden name French to make them a little less conspicuous. All quite interesting. My personal interest – my last name is the same as Melinda’s maiden name, French. Hi, distant cousin! I also sent my kids to school with the last name French, so we have that in common. Overall, I found Gates’ take on the state of women in the world to be interesting, and mostly positive. I enjoyed her personal story more, though.

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