03/25/2019
Philanthropist, mother of three, and wife of one of the world’s richest men, Gates delivers a thoughtful and empathetic treatise that demonstrates how empowering women can change the world and lift families from poverty. Gates’s career as a human rights advocate began with family planning issues, that is, a women’s right to choose when to get pregnant—an unusual stance, she notes, for a longtime practicing Catholic. With each chapter, Gates addresses other thorny issues that hold women down: unreliable maternal and newborn healthcare (“Forty million women a year give birth without assistance”), lack of access to education (both in the U.S. and abroad) and lack of access to contraception, child marriage, sex work, and female genital mutilation. Gates writes movingly of other change makers globally, including investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett (who, with Bill Gates founded the Giving Pledge organization), Pakistani education-activist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Malala Yousafzai, and Dutch human rights activist Mabel van Oranje, who fights to end child marriage—and of the pride she feels in instilling these values in her children, who have volunteered in organizations throughout Africa. Part memoir, part call to action, Gates’s compassionate narrative underscores her determination to leave a positive mark on this world. She inspires and emboldens in this eloquently argued work. (Apr.)
