Being transformed into a nightclub. [laughter] it came this close. The founders the staff here have transformed this place over the past decade and a t half into te vibrant Community Center it is today. Lets have a round of applause for that. [applause] we have a great event for you this evening, featuring Melinda Gates here to talk about her n new, the moment of lift. This is her debut as a author in her book as part memoir or call for more action as she recounts the mission shes been on. She tells the story of her journey from taking a job at microsoft in 1987, fresh out of Business Corporate to marry bill gates seven years later to partnering with her husband at creating and sharing their foundation and becoming one of the world most prominent advocates for empowering women. As her narrative makes clear, shes become inundated by the belief that no one should be excluded and have equal value and when women and girls are up everywhere, everyone benefits. [applause] one of the most appealing aspects is melindas revealing account of her own consciousness as a woman from the time pregnant with her first child when she assumed after the babys birth, shed stop working if they home because thats what women did, to duty when she considers herself a feminist pushing down barriers and biases that hold women back. She says she wrote her book to share stories of many of the women she spent around the world and she does so empathetically and powerful giving voice to the struggle dealing with discrimination, child marriage, unreliable healthcare, lack of access to education andow contraception, paid and nonpaid work. These stories are affecting an inspiring, another called to a moment of lift or good work. Melinda will be in conversation this evening with another leader in the philosophic world, patty and belinda have known each other for years. They spent their days together and microsoft. Helping build what mccain, the World Largest foundation she served for more than a decade as ceo at the Melinda Gates foundation. Abnow president at marthas tabe here in d. C. [applause] is also involved in many other organizations. It will join us in a moment but first, we have a short video. Thank you and i hope you enjoy this evenings moment of lift. When i was little, space launchers were huge in my life. I can still feel in my bones, the countdown. Especially the moment of lift when the engine ignites and the earth shakes and theor rocket starts to rise. Doing the w work of the foundation, i cofounded with my husband, i wondered, how can we have a moment of lift for human beings and especially women . Sometimes all thats needed to lift women up is to stop pulling themnd down. Through my travels, i learned hundreds of millions of women wanted to have children but they cant and many other rights and privileges that women and girls are denied. The right to go to school, finding investors, even if they are allowed by law, they are still often denied. We are going to take our place as people, it wont come, one by one or stepbystep, women and men should Work Together to take down the barriers and biases that still hold women back. More than any time in the past, we have acknowledged energy and a moral insight. Our call is to lift women up. When you lift up women, you lift up humanity. Please welcome patty stone and Melinda Gates. Ran already showed that he is a feminist himself. He said weve known each other for years but the truth is, its 30 years. [laughter] we do appreciate that. With that, well jump right in. The first question is broad, which is melinda, its clear from the video and everything we know that you have one of the most productive and busiest lives in every day with every decision you make but you took an enormous amount of time to write this book and join us here to discuss this message of empowerment. Why . Hi thank you for having us here in this amazing space. Its so fabulous to be in d. C. W i wasas out today and got to eny the weather with the dog right before this. Coming here with a little girl, learning about our government and importance, to jog on the mall and see africanamericans museum in its rightful place, its one of the most amazing things. [applause] i wrote this book and took the time to write this book because of so many things i have learned through travels. Twenty years of traveling for the foundation, im in various low Income Countries at least three times a year. I do government readings, partner meetings but probably the most important thing is meet with people on the ground. These women have shared stories of their lives with me. It has animated my life and called me to action in ways i never would have expected. I decided to write this book and share my journey in hopes to inspire others. I really believe if we lift up women, they lift up everybody else and i see it all the time everywhere i go. Melinda talks about the many of the male allies that she mentioned but when is bill and bill is this fantastic Global Health leaders who inspired both of us and talked all the time in the early years about it to be good ancestors and what he meant by thatg is that our actions today would have sounding impacts for decades to come. He meant that on a personal basis and in theil book, you she several stories about how families were the kind of ancestors that prepared you for this work. I sometimes thinks its amazing in life the people who come into your life and you try to really listen and learn from them. R his role had me thinking because i was lucky to meet a man who believed in equality. It took a lot to actually achieve equality in our marriage but he believed in it. I think thats because he had mother and father who absolutely believed in it. I saw at the tender table while we were dating, they were both extraordinarily engaged in the community and at a national level. He came from a family who believed in inequality. I watched his mom support his dads career and his father supported his moms career as well. In my family, i came from a home where my parents sent all of us to catholic schools, k12. 2. I really learned social justice from Catholic Church. My parents, both believed in the Catholic Church but when they disagreed with it, they would petition the Catholic Church. My dad was an Aerospace Engineer so he worked on the early Apollo Mission and talked often about young girls, my sister and i about bringingis women mathematicians on his team because it made his Technical Team better. When we could seek my parents wouldnt put us all through college, my parents started Real Estate Investment business and by mom read it during the day and we worked on it at night and weekends. I learned from them so many things about how a young woman could be in the world and that could be anything i wanted. One person is not here today but still very present in our work is bill gates senior who you shared in the book that in the 1940s, he wrote his thesis on the future world which he saw as having men and women having absolute equal rights and positions throughout. He was a young man when he wrote that. We were marveling at that today. He hashan always been for wome. Thats something i really admire. Im sad that as far away as they are, there were many times when he underscored this fact and some of the more racier than others but the version i could share, when the scholars were underway and we got the first round of debate about the applicant and realized young women of color were applying at two times the rate to the young men and without what should we do . Is there a campaign we should run . How about we wait 100 years and then worry about it . [laughter] he didnt really want to wait 100 years but he did have a sense that there was a time to get things right. Fastforward to the 80s and you began to makeo decisions on your own. To be fascinated by technology, to stay at duke for a long time and then joining this rough and tumble male dominated tech world called microsoft. What were you thinking . [laughter] how did a well behaved catholic girl from texas damage those years . I got my undergraduate and Computer Science and went on and got my mba at duke. Microsoft was interviewing for the first time on campus at duke. I was lucky enough to have an internship at dallas. Several summers in a row working for ibm. I got an offer to go. I thought i probably was going to do that but i let them know i was going to interview otherno places so sure enough, i went back for my spring break my hiring manager, a woman said are you ready to accept . I said theres one last company i want to interview with. She said would you mind asking me who . I sent a smallish company, 1400 people at the time and she said oh, microsoft. I said yes. Y she said would you like advice . I said sure and she said, if you get an offer, youed should take it. It floored me i asked why and she said i see your chance for advance, its good but if you go to a young startup and do well, i think you are rise would be meteoric. So i interviewed and did a quirky set of interviews but i was used to that. I was one of the few females in the lab. I ran teams at duke of all male teams. So i got to microsoft and it was rough and tumble. I didnt. Actually like myself a couple of years and. I thought about quitting. I didnt like howe, i was in li. I was with other people and traffic or at thehe grocery sto. I knew how to play that game. Nt i thought ill just stay for a while and be myself but i started to be myself. It started to work and we started to find more men and women who wanted to work in w that. My best friend was my. , we somehow ended up having a division where people wanted to work in a different way, a more collaborative way. I think people just wanted to work in a more collaborative way. I learned i could be myself and be successful. Part of it wast, having female ngrole model and manager. I could talk to her about how hard it was. I learned a lot watching you at microsoft. I had your back and you had other peoples back. It was true, we would describe it as a place whereom u could put your fist up and didnt put it up until the end of the day. When you do that, you forget not to do that at home for the Grocery Store or driving down the highway to get tok work on time. I know that culture has continued to evolve but will talk more about culture because at the end of the day, it is about creating culture where people can win without having their fists up. Nothing good comes of that. Fastforward, you meant this interesting, passionate man and you and bill married new years day 1994. At least two of us were there. I will tell youhe one thing, thy were very competitive and melinda and her family joined in right away but they believed in equalizing things and Beach Volleyball game, bill senior is 6foot 6foot seven. He was a ride wide range of skills. We were all most to put volleyball. Famously, at this same wedding, bills mother was battling cancer, shared a line that really resonated with the relationship you and bill already had. We had my mom stand up and read a letter that she wrote to me and mary gates read her letter separately. Marys letter said to whom much is given, much is expected. I think in aoi certain way, maye mary understood where my life was going in a way that i got 29th and still you understand. Ua she was deeply involved in philanthropy and i know she always hoped and pushed her son at the dinner table to do the campaign to be more typically minded and he was. He would say im going to but i will later. I will give away my money later. But i think she knew that then. The other thing she said at the end of that letter, its a incredibly beautiful letter. She said i hope you love your bill as much as i loved mine. She did die the following year. Within the twoyear timeframe, bill senior stepped forward and began to do the philanthropy for you and he would taken ideas and offers and proposals and review il sendd consider them and it over to you to look at it with bill and then i joined in 97 but you know the line about arbiters, every problem is a nail well, we were really good at what we did. We understood product so your passion started with education. When we became aware of the challenges of health, we became advocates, successful and the supporters of Vaccine Development and delivery and when it comes to library in the u. S. , we connected every library in the u. S. So we were pretty good carpenters. Melinda has a rare gift and you began immediately to listen in a way that perhaps those of us busy hammering too quickly werent hearing. He began to ask people questions and listen to the answers. One of those was a woman named mina. We w would leave each other epic voicemails. I would answer the phone and said i dont want to talk to, i just want to hear your voice. Days afterwards. But you speak in the book about how, certainly, everywhere we went when we were asking about did you have your child get vaccines, the women would say, yes, let me show to you my vaccination card. But what about my shot . What about the shot that kept me healthy and kept me from delivering . But then a woman named mina and you spoke. She had just had a child birth, and she had gone through a program that we were very proud of and supporting called safe and she was very excited and melissa got a chance to talk to her talking about how much it better it was but then that changed everything. She had a young son standing by her side with a beautiful baby boy in her arms. So that we in the Indian Government help to support and the child is more likely to live to the childhood she had a wonderful experience she was a little bit shy so i was about so what are your hopes and dreams for your two beautiful sons . After a long time like oh my gosh i asked a question i made a mistake all of a sudden she looks up with tears in her eyes after she had been so warm and smiling and said the truth is i have no hope of feeding this one when i am on or educating and she said would you take them home with you . That is their only hope. I was devastated after that trip for any mother anywhere in the world who loves her children to ask a stranger to take them home it shows you how dire the circumstances are. I learned from talking with many other women that you have to let your heart break over time i learned to take time and take those stories and then figure out after you work through those than the deep sadness too say what can we do . What should we do to help lift up these women and their children so they do have more hope in their lives . And one of the best dancers is birth control. While we were doing work and Family Planning and work of contraceptive delivery you realize the size of the gap and became committed to reference the london summit. Tell us about what you learned and the goal 2030. Everywhere i was going around the world whether malawi or senegal talking to women about safe and healthy birth are vaccinations when i would put the question back on them what questions do you have of me . What about my health . What about contraception . I was shocked how many women knew about them and that they use to use them but in that Little Health clinic that was easily half the size of the stage to show up for vaccines they would tell you they would walk ten or 20 kilometers and say i use to be able to get contraceptives here why can i not . They said this is an emergency if i have another child in the next year i may not survive a childbirth and if i have three or four or five already i cannot pay for them its not fair to the ones that i have. I could not believe it and at first i wanted to turn away from this. I was catholic i knew this wouldnt be easy but looking at the data because of aids condoms were stocked but if i would ask them cant you get condomss . They say i cannot negotiate a condom in my relationship to suggest that my husband is unfaithful or that i have been unfaithful and depoprovera is covert so there husband doesnt know or their motherinlaw is not pressuring them to have more children. Soso we came back and started to realize we needed to do something as a foundation so with many governments and partners to really amass resources. There are 220 million women asking for contraceptives and we are not delivering them. We raise two. 6 billion on behalf of these women to provide access. [applause] and the goal was to have full access by 2030 and this is 2012. To be frank the first three years were so incredibly difficult to rebuild the supply chain, money into research for contraceptives that have fewer side effects , to build a database data system the data was so thin i could not believe that we had to build a data system sending women out with the cell phones to the villages with 30 questions on the cell phone to actually understand the type of contraceptive they have ted what they want and what we even learned is just the value even asking women just about me and my life that my Voice Matters . We learned so much it took a long time to build that up now 40 million women are on contraceptives. But we have a long way to go to gettr 220 million women. And then more here about it so now more are asking about it. One of the things this has caused an examination of self i know you said part of the reason you said this is going to be hard because you are catholic at the sameme time a catholic whose children are remarkably well spaced as our mine the. [laughter] so tell us about the journey. I really had to wrestle with my own faith that does not believe in women having access to contraceptives but yet i also believe of loving my neighbor and you grew up in a Catholic Church with amazing social justice roots rose by a set of liberal nuns they sent us out to the community to work courthouse, hospitals, they taught us that one person can make a difference in one other persons life and we are here to giveve back our time and energy and money any three can work. I had those roots were kept thinking when its ageappropriate i will counsel all three of my children to use contraceptives. I have used them but how can i believe this with my values fully at home and in my workplace i want to tell my daughters to use their voice and i believe in this tool. Over 90 percent of americans use this tool even 91 catholic women. We are not going to let women and children die. I was terrified to go out and speak about this but somebody had to do it. Aat the end of the day we had to do it from the ground up perspective not the top down but to say this is what women are asking for lets deliver what they are asking for. [applause] so much of this that is relatable after the two. 6 billion and the summit finished and you gathered a group of Women Leaders together to do the cheers, they did the quick cheers then said you know you cannot just do Family Planning, right . You have to do Everything Else with womens empowerment i loveve that you are honest and you said find somebody else. [laughter] at that point all three kids were preteens. Running this foundatio foundation, navigating a lif life, you must have cried. Eyeballed. I gather this group of women and most of them i did not know but were leaders in their field and i had my very best friend with me that i met literally on the first day of high school in academy so we were there to take the victory lap and learn from them. So then they say you know youve just begun. What do you mean . I use one i just did really twoyear soulsearching were to get governments on board and build a coalition and navigate the politics and they said no. Finally somebody has raised Something Like billions of dollars and here are all the other things that need to be done. Literally i was crying in the car we are flying back to United States i said i cannot do this. They have to find somebody i else. There is no way. So i needed some rest and some time alone i think we exhaust herself sometimes and said they are right. There is so much more that we need to do and the only way to get the work done is in partnership withe many other people but we have to use our voice. Thats great. One point out these two if you dont just want to support a womans opportunity but also continue to rise quality education is on the list in one of the stories you share is about a young woman and now to be clear its very hard in areas of poverty to invest in womens education because the urges are immediate and investment of education is a longterm investment. So one little girl approaches one of our wonderful colleagues living in a community where they were around 6 feet of trash and made him a little bird and gave it to him made out of trash and then they sat down to begin their discussion about Family Planning. She looked him right in the eye with everybody else and said talking about women and Childrens Health and said i want a teacher and said we were nowhere near education at this point he said i understand but then went around the village this little girl kept saying i want to teacher. She mustve done this eight timess at the site visit. When he did the round up with the partners in the community about how the day had gone , you have to have great help first first and foremost this is about help in these countries if you dont get health you cannot even get an education but he said what about this girls request for education . L d theyha said we will spend some time on this they got a group of activists together and went to the government and advocated for this disenfranchised area that did not have a school but deserved one not only they got her a teacher they got a school for the kids in that area. [applause] Family Planning and education is a priority but at the end of the day it is also essential to lift Family Income and that the buffetsts allow with agriculture we learn most of the income from the families we talk about was coming from agricultural effort efforts. We also learned most of the farmers were women. So tell the story of patricia who was farming on Christmas Day be because you marveled at the fact somebody with her ambition and intelligence should have been doing very well but agriculture is the poster child for gender bias you are know there are five things good land, seed, supplies, time and knowhow so how does gender play into those quick. This was the biggest missed idea so we were working on health so now we do work a bit on international education. It is a quality education and then restarted for a foundation because most people in the developing world thats how they get their income so she let me know she was planting on Christmas Day she had the right seed implanted the number of rows and she had gotten a good o yield and increased yield on her farm. But the biggest idea we have as a foundation is if we were working with our partners that was drought resistant the radiance are coming at different times they are coming in flood floods, once a year instead of twice a year , if you work on flood or droughtgh resistant seeds and get 30 percent more yield than we were making a false assumption and said if you got that through the dealers then that would reach all farmers equally but 50 percent of the farmers are women but it doesnt reach the women. They often the men control the radio, the cell phone , women are 40 percent less likely even if they have a cell phone to have an internet connection. So the information of how, when, to plant and it just was not reaching women. So we learned from any farmers with a specific programming they not only get a bigger yield but the way they invest in their families or their assets is different from a man they will invest on behalf of their kids health and education which is an enormous difference. There is a great story of a local organization begins to flip sides and her husband begins to look toward the greater understanding of the knowhow to increase Family Income and the ability for the children and how much that understanding that makes me think a little roleplay would help this in our families. It does. When we actually work on recognize the work i have seen this in so many countries that when you do this roleplay that we often go in with those who were working on the ground of every task in the household and on the farm who carries the firewood so i have literally sat there and then you asked them to sort them and i literally thought we would incite a riot in one village because the women sorted all the things they did of those three dozen 30 were on their side and six were on the men side. [laughter] the more cards they were angry use of what were they doing . Hes stopping and having a beer with his friends. Soso for the men and women have to do the exercise now the men see that i didnt realize how long it takes to carry firewood or to cook and until the village comes together to recognize all of the work and the unpaid work and recognize our economy is built on the back of women unpaid labor if we dont recognize that we dont get a chance to redistribute that wealth. [applause]la when we were talking backstage, talking about reading the book and listening to the book i got chills which is the women who spent their days in unpaid work it was that of a lifetime and not just countries that are not the United States im to about a mother with a masters degree and the unpaid work of my children thats a lot of work to build the dreams of a lifetime. We have a chance to do better so to tell the story of emma and centauri how they welcomed you into their home to stay with them. They live in tanzania two and a half hours out of the capital into a rural area. And they welcomed us into the home we stayed in the goat shedy they had a home and then another shed for cooking where the motherinlaw would come to sta stay. So i followed her around they chopped firewood which is very hard. We carried water one. 7 miles i didnt think i would make it despite the fact we i work out in the gym. But they were absolutely in a loving relationship. I would talk to them together a bid separately but anna told a story about her marriage and she said i almost left him at the birth of our first son robert and i was shocked. I said why . I came from a very lush area in tanzania and this is very dry here. I did confirm the story later as he told that he said i came home and anna had packed her bags and was sitting on the front step with my baby son and i was heartbroken and she said i cant raise her son and carry the water and cook and i cannot travel this distance these 12 miles and back every day he said what can i do . And thatd simple question we all need to wrestle with in our homes she said you could carry the water. I want to tell you most men in the watered lawn in the world do not carry the water definitely the maasai men do not but he started to go and carry the water and his friends teased him you have been bewitched but they would walk back and forth and they started to realize how long this journey was then they got on their bikes and they were biking back and forth and i got the idea why dont we join together with the community and build them close which by that time i show up years later there are already two water pans near the village so i learned we have to have those conversations in our home those Difficult Conversations because even in the United States women do 90 more minutes work per day of unpaid labor. Per day despite the fact 47 percent of 4 the us workforce today are women. We are asking women to do the dual role you want to go to the workforce but at home you have 90 minutes more to do. And for women, taking care of their own health or working on their graduate degree that is seven years of her life. We need to recognize that work for what it is we want to carrier for our loved ones but a lot of it is chores like dishes and laundry and shopping. Some of that we can farm out. Other services you get but to be honest a lot of that we need to redistribute and i learned that myself from anna on her farm to make anything you want to share about shared work in your house . [laughter] i will say im not always the most friendly about these conversations in my home on our best days but first of all i am lucky i am so privileged because of microsoft resources people do a lot of things for us but things in our family i want our children to see bill and i do we are all modeling in her home. So when she was starting kindergarten we have so agreed where we wanted her to go to school but i could see the years ahead we arty had two kids and i said the eight f traffic are you kidding me . He said what can i do to help . And before i could even say anything he was still ceo of microsoft at the time and said i could drive a couple mornings a week. I thought are you serious . But then i thought why not . For me it was a 45 minute roundtrip twice a day for him it was one hour because the school was even further for microsoft he started to do it he even said thisll be great time in the car with me with jenna and he was right. But then three weeks into the school year a mom said do you see anything different in the classroom . I said theres a lot of dads coming into the classroom and dropping off their kids and said if bill gates can do it so can you. [laughter] [applause] we dont have it all right by any stretch of the imagination but that with those expectations of ourselves. Where do they not even think where they can help. Is not just getting more water to the house. At the end of the book you have a section entitled discrimination against women. Reminds me of the journey to learn more about Racial Equity but i retired three weeks ago. [laughter] i remember you and i having a long walk even from the very beginning you said i am so committed to bringing up more leaders who dont look like me on the board and in the organization when i replace myself it needs to be a person color. There is a lot of good writing i have benefited from and as lot of good teachers that have helped me a lot but the institute uses a broad reference of groundwater when syou go outside and see the lake and the fish floating what is wrong there . Did they not swim enough . What did they do wrong . Did they lose the battle for food . Now you go to the next lake and steve fisher floating and realizing theres a bigger problem you have to replace the water now all of the lakes there are fish floating and you realize this is groundwater it is a deeper issue that cannot be addressed simply by a better teacher in the classroom we have to look at groundwater issues and that is not dissimilar to the issues that you have discovered in your exploration of gender inequality and the history of government with the role of religion in the contribution and the role of culture in households and expectations and how that was formed with a case of gender in society so i am very conscious of the clock if you give the negative and the lift live seeking gender equality so governments role in the example of a negative today. I think the negative is that government moves slowly but the lift is that it does things that scale. When you get it right, the private sector gets it right or ngo or philanthropy and they can prove that it works really it is governments job. They need to scale up. I will say this but women and people of color were written out of our constitution. One of the reasons i am so passionate in the us about getting the tech sector right for women as we are baking bias into the ai system and that will be pervasive but if you dont have people of color are all nationalitiespr creating a seat at the table this will take us 200 years to undo. [applause] last night you said well done on family leave with an example of where we are getting it wrong in the workplace where government can support great change. Talking about the Catholic Church and religion bringing forward the best moral values for standing in the way the best moral values for standing in the way talking like in senegal they will tell you we need to help get the news out through the network all the way down to the village level because they reach the men and women and they will sayom that that should not be so the more . . . Uses about Family Planning they will send out the message and thats g really powerful. Wee are coming toward the ends of our time together so what do we do . You have a magic wand so we leave here tonight and we buy the book. [laughter] but what do we do tomorrow, this month or this year to create the lift that we can show something important can happen . This window of time because of me to and those running for office but we cannot let this window go by. [applause] so what i would say to men and women alike look at the unpaid labor and if you dont make a different decision look in your workplace does that have transparency in the main one managerial role . Equity in terms of pay . Do i have full equality or decisionmaking for all men and women . If not what can we do to help the . If you are sitting in a chair tonight and you bought a ticket to come to this event you are lucky. We are lucky to live in the United States. Open up your network if you are a man or woman to somebody who does not look like you. Helpdy somebody of different race. That start in life my first internship at ibm so look at that trajectory so use your voice with those elected people who believe in paid family medical leave were the only industrialized nation who doesnt have it 17 percent gets it but yet we have an aging population to care for. Look at all three bases and do something. Figure out what you need to do with your time and energy. [applause] men raise your hands. [applause] so throughout the book you talk about male allies but its nice to have the shining stars so when do we get the urgency from men not just the metoo moment but that same level of urgency to create that empowerment that so many mfemale heads are asking for tonight then, i learned this from a man in senegal hauling water for his wife he said i do it because my home is happier when my wife is happier. [laughter]wi happy wife happy life. [laughter] went on a serious note i have worked with so many enlightened and incredible men to help women and mentor women and sponsor and women of color to get into your network to get the first job or college degree. It makes such a difference or if you see women not sitting at the table then ask them to table or ask your manager for the numbers how many women have managerial roles . Ask for that and demand that in our workplace. There is a great line in the book asking for equal results if not given equal opportunity you do talk in your epilogue that we should all be fighting for empowerment but ultimately we should be driving toward connection and love when you iare angry about this inequality and the pace of change and you are impatient. How do you connect to that back to love . You know the beginning of the foundation our roots are all lives have equal value but yet i dont see equal opportunity wherever we go. Is it in my own family and all kinds of couples and partnerships we want to be your most authentic self in our world of workplace and we want to be loved we dont talk about this that much but bill teases me i live my life backwards so what do i care about the most on the last day of my life that i was loved and thats true of all human beings on the planet. I hope thats the next book. [applause] independence. [cheers and applause]
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